#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--MEET STAINED GLASS ARTIST ROSALIND DUKE, MYSTERY AUTHOR MICHELE DRIER'S NEWEST SLEUTH

Fifth generation Californian Michele Drier has lived and worked all over the state. As a reporter and editor at daily newspapers, she won awards for investigative series. Her fifteen books include the Amy Hobbes Newspaper Mysteries, The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, a series of paranormal romances, and The Stained Glass Murders. Today she turns her guest spot over to her newest creation, widow and stained glass artist Rosalind Duke. Learn more about Michele and her books here.

I blame it all on the university.

In my first year, I took a required Art History course and it left me with a hunger for Medieval art, specifically stained glass, and a BIG hunger for the TA, Winston Duke.

We married, I began a career as a stained glass artist, and now I’m a widow, living on the Oregon coast with Tut, my rescue Greyhound and an international reputation as a top stained glass artist.

Need a big commissioned piece for your home or business or church? You’re going to get a recommendation for me.

One of the things I cherish is my schedule. I don’t have one beyond what I take on for myself.

My day is taken up with routine things mixed with creativity. In a typical day, I take inventory of my glass and cames (the leading that holds the pieces of glass together).

There are a lot of colors I stock: three shades of blue, four shades of red, a couple of yellows, an assortment of purples (pale lavender to deep purple) and some brown/beiges. As I come up with a design, I search my glass dealers’ sites for offbeat colors.

 Besides the large commissions, which make up the bulk of my work and income, I have a small business of selling stained glass kits to make at home. These contain the pattern, glass, caming, solder, a knife, a soldering iron and instructions. My catalogue includes reproductions of van Gogh’s Irises and Sunflowers, and I’m adding some from the coast where I’m living.

Today, I’m spending an hour on my deck sketching a design for a window that has a small piece of the ocean edged by forest and salmonberries, chosen because of their little, round shape that should look like Christmas ornaments shining beneath the trees. I have the design roughed out, it will be an oval, suitable for hanging in a window or inserting into a door. Now I have to search for the glass that will make up the berries. I found a dealer in Portland that has a nice reddish-orange tone, which should pop among the blues of the Pacific and the greens of the forest.

This afternoon, I’ll finalize the sketch, take photos to upload to my computer, and then project the best one against a white wall in my studio. Then I tape a large sheet of tracing paper over the design on the wall, trace it out and move it to my light table. Once it’s firmly taped down, I begin working out the color scheme and cutting the individual pieces of glass.

I don’t even know if they could take my fingerprints, I have so many small nicks and cuts from handling the glass and the knives. When all the pieces are cut, I tape the edges and smother them in bubble wrap, packaging them with enough caming to make the joins, with a good amount left over, and ship them off.

It’s a labor-intensive job and requires patience and a fairly steady hand, but it’s labor I love. It keeps me in touch with Winston’s spirit and ties me to a craft that added beauty and light to the world for more than 1,000 years.

Stain on the Soul

A Stained Glass Mystery

Who murdered Winston Duke? Why?

His widow, Rosalind (Roz) had no answers but to put her life back together, the internationally known stained glass artist moved to a small town on the Oregon coast. Here, where she knew no one, she planned to use the beach, scoured by wind and water, to cleanse her soul and rebuild her creativity. That is, until one morning when her peace was smashed by the lights and sirens of emergency vehicles, and the sight of her neighbor’s bloody body being taken away. Meeting others from the town, Roz is pulled into a mystery of who the neighbor was and finds a circle of friends far removed the Los Angeles of her life with Winston.

Buy links

paperback

ebook  

FAVORITES, FAILURES & FRUSTRATIONS--GUEST AUTHOR MARNI GRAFF

Marni Graff is the award-winning author of The Nora Tierney Mysteries, set in England, and The Trudy Genova Manhattan Mysteries. She also co-authored Writing in a Changing World and writes crime book reviews. Learn more about Marni and her books at her website/blog. Marni joins us today to talk about one of her favorite things--stained glass. 

As a writer, I play the “what if?” game when devising action or plot points for my two mystery series. So when my husband and I tired of the crowded, hectic, traffic-laden environment that our lovely Long Island had become, we played the same game. What if we changed the way we ran our lives completely? What if we left LI for the nature-filled riverside property we’d bought for a vacation home “down the road?” Maybe we were ready to go down that road sooner than later.

Moving to coastal North Carolina meant building our own home, something I’d never done before. We rented a cottage nearby, excitedly moving from firming up our plans to hiring a builder while we cleared our land on the Intracoastal Waterway site. One thing we knew from early on: we wanted a stained glass window set into the wall of what would be the living room-library area that opened into the rest of the main floor.

Despite having different decorating styles, mine vintage and Edwardian, Doc’s more Art Deco veering toward Modern, we both adore vintage stained glass, and had been collecting pieces for the new house as we went through the run-up to actually breaking ground. We had a double French painted-on-glass beauty from our current home for our bedroom. We found two windows that would be hung by chains in our master bathroom windows and set about restoring their frames as the house framing commenced. One is from a local church, a large cathedral arch in hues of gold with WELCOME picked out across it in large black letters. At night we turn on the light over our tub, and that window, which faces our driveway, greets our company. But that tall ceiling, soaring to fifteen feet in height in the main room, could handle a much larger piece than we’d come across--yet.

One Sunday we were riding around the small town of Chocowinity, a Tuscarora Indian name for “fish of many waters,” about an hour from our land. A friend had told us about an antique shop that was only open on the weekends. The owners visited the UK yearly and brought back a container of vintage furniture and doors, with the occasional piece of stained glass. It sounded right up our alley.

I saw her the moment we parked. The main window was filled with a large piece of Art Nouveau stained glass. Its center held a hand-painted medallion, a woman’s head with the flowing tresses of the era draped in grape vines. The four corners had Nouveau flowers in jeweled colors of cranberry, blue and green. It took my breath away, as did the price tag once we checked inside.

The owner was lovely and we ended up buying an 1880s English armoire and blanket chest that day. I kept returning to the window and drooling. We’d learned she was from Scotland, and yes, we were spot on. She was from the Art Nouveau period, 1890-1910, and Gerald said he was told she was from a Scottish estate that had been built in 1898. By now we were on a first name basis with Gerald and on subsequent visits, bought a vintage drafting table from the 1940s whose top Gerald had inlaid with marble. It doubles as our kitchen island and pastry roll-out station. But I kept eyeing The Scottish Lady, as we called her.

A few months later our anniversary was approaching, and as Doc and I were discussing how we wanted to celebrate, he turned to me. “How would you feel about asking Gerald if we could put The Scottish Lady on layaway and pay her off?”

 

Building a house takes a while. So did paying off The Scottish Lady, but the two coincided enough that when the builder had scaffolding in place for the beams that stretch across our room and hold the house up, we were able to set The Scottish Lady right into the end wall of the house. She’s fronted on the outside by a plain glass window for protection.

At the golden hours before sunset, sunlight streams through those colors and is reflected on the walls and the books in my library. We’ve lived in The Briary now for thirteen years and The Scottish Lady is still one of my favorite things.

The Scarlet Wench

In the third Nora Tierney Mystery, The Scarlet Wench, American writer Nora awaits the arrival of a traveling theatre troupe, who will stage Noel Coward’s farce, Blithe Spirit at Ramsey Lodge. Her son now six months old, Nora must juggle parenting with helping her friend Simon Ramsey at the lodge. She’s also hoping to further her relationship with the only guest not in the cast: DI Declan Barnes, ostensibly there for a hiking trip. When a series of pranks and accidents escalate to murder, Nora realizes her child is in jeopardy and is determined to help Declan unmask a killer.

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GLASS ART WITH GUEST AUTHOR MARY J. FORBES

Mary J. Forbes writes stories with an emotional depth that is reflected in each of her characters. Several of her Harlequin books were Waldenbooks bestsellers, and reached Nielsen’s BookScan and Amazon’s respective top 100 lists. Mary loves to garden, and the rain of the Pacific Northwest where she lives with her family is often portrayed in her stories. But once the clouds roll away, her heroes and heroines always find their rainbow waiting on the horizon. Learn more about Mary and her books at her website.

I’ve always loved dabbling in arts and crafts. I’ve gone through an oil and watercolor painting phase. Sketched with charcoal. Knitted afghan throws. Dipped into the realm of sewing and embroidering. And, lately, fallen in love with quilting.

But...

Finding the right craft for my heroine of Home Secrets wasn’t easy. Lily wanted her craft to be a home business that would emulate the ideology of her grandmother’s ideology: to live happy and simply.

After all, she was renting a cabin on a neglected fruit farm near her Granny’s hometown. And as a single mother, Lily wanted to see her daughter off to school each morning and be home when the bus dropped the girl at the farm’s gate.

Although she’d been a teacher in her married life, Lily had always wanted to create beauty in glass—an art form I, personally, had never tried. Yet, Lily would not be denied. She persisted, whispering in my ear. “Stained glass, broken glass portraits...”

So, I drove to a quaint neighboring village where I knew merchants sold artsy creations and materials. And found a lovely little store tucked into an alleyway behind Main Street.

It harbored beauty in every shade and shape of glass. Large pieces, tiny bits, tall chunky spectacles, thin elegant splendors.

What caught my eye were two portraits. One was of a horse galloping across a meadow, the other of a cat curled up in a basket.

And suddenly I knew. This was Lily’s “Scene-In-Glass” business.

I asked the owners of the store, a husband-wife team, dozens of questions. At home, I researched hundreds of sites about the making of portraits in glass, and discovered a world of unique and intricate art.

I learned about pistol-grip glass cutters, breaking pliers, and tile rippers which broke large pieces of glass into attractive shards or the tiniest sliver. I read about using sponges and brushes to wipe away grout. And why to always use goggles and protective gloves when manipulating glass.

And so I had Lily set up shop in the empty garage on the farm. A born artist, she sketched outlines of pets from photos—taken by their owners—onto squares of wood. She’d select colored glass, break it into desired pieces, then glue the shards onto a wood panel to form a beautiful mosaic. From start to finish, the process could take days or weeks.

What I didn’t know when I began writing Home Secrets was that Lily’s “business” would pop up in certain scenes and simply make me smile.

Home Secrets

She believed in him when no one else did... 

A terrible divorce and car wreck scars Lily Wheaton inside and out. Desperate to reclaim normality, she flees to the quiet ambiance of her late grandmother's birthplace in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. There, Lily believes she has conquered her demons. That is, until her ex-husband demands sole custody of their child. Without funds to battle him in court, Lily will do anything to keep her daughter, even stand up for her landlord and neighbor, Grey Montgomery—a man her ex insists is a criminal. 

After serving time for a drunk-driving fatality sixteen years ago, Grey escaped the censure of Hawkes Landing. Now his mother is dying, and he returns to his childhood home where his sister remains as obstinate as ever, the lack of medical facilities could mark the downfall of his family, and people won’t let him forget the nightmare of his mistakes. Only Lily sees him for the man he is today. But as another tragedy strikes at the heart of Grey’s past, he and Lily must accept a dark truth about their families before discovering that some of life’s toughest choices involve the healing power of forgiveness, love, and the will to go on.

Buy Link

CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST AUTHOR TRISS STEIN

Today we welcome back mystery author Triss Stein who’s here to tell us about her love affair with decorative glass and the latest book in her Erica Donato Mystery series. Learn more about Triss and her books at her website. 

I'm not a crafty person at all, but I admire other people's skill and talent, and I especially admire glass. Maybe it's because my grandmother took me to the annual local antique show and the shimmery Victorian glass enchanted me.  

Maybe it's because we visited Corning and saw fragile glass that was, somehow, thousands of years old, and molten glass being blown into shapes. Talk about magic! I began to collect glass paperweights.

I fell in love with the modern perfection of Steuben crystal.

Then I discovered Tiffany. The glass, not the store.

Of course all this would have to become part of a book. My motto isn't "Write what you know." It's "Write what you love."

I can't give a  spoiler for my own book, so let's just say that many years ago, there was a crime involving Tiffany (and other) stained glass windows. And I read the newspaper articles and thought, "Wow, what a great background for a mystery."  It was a long time before I even finished my first Brooklyn mystery, let alone saw it in print, but I was thinking ahead to the next one.

Then, in 2007, there was an exhibit at the New York Historical Society. Called A New Light on Tiffany, it brought back to life the story of the Tiffany girls, an all-women glass cutting and design department of Louis Comfort Tiffany's business.   A recently discovered collection of letters from Clara Driscoll, the manager and chief designer, vividly told the story of the women who lived independent lives and established themselves as a creative force back in the days when they could not even vote. I was entranced. I knew that if I was ever going to write about Tiffany glass, this had to be part of the story.

I don't write historical mysteries, but my heroine is a Brooklyn historian whose research leads her into old and new crimes. So I gave her a scholar's mystery about what happened to a young woman who wrote charming letters when she was part of Clara Driscoll's team of designers. And then there is a problem relating to a Tiffany window at historic Green-Wood cemetery. Increasingly suspicious. And of course that leads to a modern day crime or two.

How much did I enjoy the many necessary visits to museums to look at Tiffany glass? And the purchase of a few beautiful books?  Plus some Tiffany stationery to use for think-you notes?  And a scarf from the Metropolitan Museum shop with a Tiffany design that matches my book cover, to wear for my book signing? 

What do you think?

Brooklyn Graves

A brutally murdered family man without an enemy in the world. A box full of charming letters home, written a century ago by an unknown female worker at the famed Tiffany studios. Historic Green-Wood cemetery, where a decrepit mausoleum with stunning stained glass windows is now off limits. Suddenly, all of this is part of Erica Donato’s life.

Erica is a youngish single mother of a teen, an oldish history grad student, and the lowest person on the totem pole of the history museum where she works. Arbitrarily assigned to catalogue the valuable letters for an arrogant expert visiting the museum, she is also assigned to take that same expert to see the mysteriously closed mausoleum windows. And as stressful as her working life become, her friendship with the murdered man’s family compels her to help.

Soon secrets begin to emerge in the most unexpected places. An admirable life was not what it seemed, confiding letters conceal their most important story, and too many people have hidden histories and hidden agendas. All set against the background of the splendid old cemetery and the life of modern Brooklyn, the stories of old families and old loves with hidden ties merges with new crimes and the true value of art.

Buy Links

paperback

ebook 

DECORATING WITH JEANIE--GUEST AUTHOR AND DECORATOR HELENA FAIRFAX

Helena Fairfax was born in Uganda to an Irish mother and British father. She’s lived in Germany and Austria and now resides in Wuthering Heights territory. She joins us today to share her love of decorating with antiques and tell us about her latest novel. Learn more about Helena at her website. 

Decorating with Antiques

Buying and selling antiques has become a popular pastime, and using antiques in your home is a great way to provide individual style.  Antiques are also more affordable than you might think.  Most antique shops don’t just stock the more valuable items such as Royal Worcester vases or seventeenth century oak furniture.  You will find an array of items covering a range of prices…and there’s nothing more fascinating than picking your way through the display!

Incorporating antiques into a modern home might seem like a contradiction in terms, but one or two vintage items of furniture can make a striking addition. If you are not keen on bringing in larger items, then a few vases, a bowl or an antique print can add interest.

It’s easy to get carried away in antique shops (or maybe that’s just me!), so to prevent your house looking like a mish-mash of styles, try to concentrate on your color scheme, or perhaps on one particular period whose style you love.

My terraced house in the north of England, for example, was built during the Victorian era, but I personally find the typical Victorian style a little too ornate and fussy.   The Victorians were great ones for frills and bows and tartan dresses, parlors cluttered with ornaments, and showy jewelry. 

The art nouveau period, at the turn of the twentieth century, swept away all these frills and furbelows, and it's a style I love.

Art nouveau is French for "new art."  It's hard to sum up in words what this new art meant, but I'll try!  To me, art nouveau is all about dramatic, curving lines with themes and colours taken from nature.  Sadly, the original stained glass windows in my house are long gone :( , but I have a replica which encapsulates the art nouveau style.

A stained glass window is one of the more pricey ways of incorporating your chosen style in your décor, but having the style you want needn’t cost a great deal.  For example, I picked up a cheap, battered wardrobe in an antique shop and covered it in a modern wallpaper.  It’s also possible to buy replica antiques, such as the replica lampshade which hangs in my hallway.

Buying antiques for your home is a great way to show your individual style.  And who knows…one day the piece you bought for a song might be worth a fortune :)

The heroine of my latest novel is a woman who knows all about the world of antiques, but maybe a little less about affairs of the heart…until she meets my gorgeous hero!

The Antique Love

One rainy day in London, Wyoming man Kurt Bold walks into an antique shop off the King’s Road and straight into the dreams of its owner, Penny Rosas. Lively, spirited and imaginative, Penny takes this handsome stranger for a romantic cowboy straight from the pages of a book. Kurt certainly looks every inch the hero…but he soon brings Penny’s dreams to earth with a thump. His job is in the City, in the logical world of finance—and as far as Kurt is concerned, romance is just for dreamers. Events in his childhood have shown him just how destructive love can be. Now he’s looking for a wife, right enough, but what he wants is a marriage based on logic and rational decisions. Kurt treats Penny like he would his kid sister, but when he hires her to help refurbish his beautiful Victorian house near Richmond Park, it’s not long before he starts to realize it’s not just his home she’s breathing life into. The logical heart he has guarded so carefully all these years is opening up to new emotions, in a most disturbing way…

Buy Link

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR LAURA KAYE

A multi-published author of paranormal, contemporary and erotic romance, Laura Kaye’s hot, heartfelt stories are all about the universal desire for a place to belong. Laura is the author of the bestselling contemporary romance and award-nominated Hearts of Darkness and the bestselling and award-winning paranormal romance Forever Freed. North of Need, a contemporary fantasy romance, is the first in the 4-book Hearts of the Anemoi series. Read more about Laura and her books at her website.

Laura is offering a free e-book of North of Need to one of our readers who posts a comment this week. Don’t forget to include your email address in your comment or check back on Sunday to learn if you’ve won. -- AP

  

Craftiness Runs in the Family

Thanks to Anastasia for hosting me here at Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers! I’m celebrating the recent release of my contemporary fantasy romance, North of Need, a book filled with sweet holiday magic, hot paranormal romance, and unique world building based on Greek mythology! Given all the fun crafts y’all talk about here, I thought I’d share a craft that I’ve been involved with… 

The women in my family have always been into crafts. My mom crocheted afghans and painted pottery from the time I was old enough to remember. Growing up, we had a family tradition on Thanksgiving: the men went to go watch football, and the women gathered around the kitchen table to make an annual craft: ornaments, flower arrangements, gingerbread houses, and jewelry among them.

When I got to my senior year of college and was way ahead on my required credits, I had a semester of coursework to take just for fun. So, I chose an English class on banned books, a historical archaeology class, an extra history class (I was a history major)…and an art class making stained glass windows.

Despite the cuts on my fingers and burning myself with the solder gun, I loved stained glass window making. My first window was huge. I called it Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. And I flew through learning the craft of making a stained-glass window and finishing that window in about eight weeks. I was so far ahead, I finished a second 18”-diameter circular window in the last four weeks of the semester.

And then I took all my tools home and taught my mom how to do it. She loved it so much, she went out and bought tools of her own. Together, we made tons of pieces, and that following Christmas, everyone received pieces of stained glass as a gift! (Some of the below Christmas village pieces are hers, and some mine) About that same time, my aunt got into painting old furniture. Shortly thereafter, the two of them actually started selling their furniture and stained glass at craft shows, and quite a few weekends were spent hawking the family wares in community centers, parks, and at festivals.

I haven’t made a window in quite a long time, but I think of those week nights and weekend days around my mom’s kitchen table making stained glass with fondness. When she died a few years back, I inherited all the pieces she’d made as well as her tools and a box full of glass—it’s all just waiting for me to return to it. Maybe I’ll wait till my seven year old’s a bit older—I can tell already, she’s got the family craft gene in her. And maybe it’ll bring the two of us together the way it did me and my mom…

So, tell me: Has crafting brought you closer with a friend or family member?

Thank you so much for hosting me! As a thank you for your readers, I’m offering this free holiday cookbook released by one of my publishers and featuring two recipes from me! Now, it doesn’t include North of Need heroine Megan’s snow cone recipe in it, but that one’s easy: big cup, spoon, then alternating layers of snow, Hershey’s chocolate syrup, and strawberry Gatorade. Try it! Eees goooood!

Thanks for reading!

Laura Kaye

Thanks for joining us today, Laura. Readers, post a comment if you'd like the chance to win a copy of North of Need, and don't forget to click on the link above for your free holiday cookbook. -- AP