AN INTERVIEW WITH SAMMIE HARGRAVE FROM AUTHOR JUDY HOGAN'S PENNY WEAVER MYSTERIES

The Gower Peninsula, Wales

Today we sit down for a chat with Sammie Hargrave from author Judy Hogan’s Penny Weaver Mystery Series.

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

That’s not how it happened. If anything, I pull her strings. She’s not very good when the plot thickens, so to speak. She won’t lie; she’s too well behaved. I’m the one who livens things up, and she doesn’t understand me. I’ve always liked a few adventures in the unknown. I still do.

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

I mostly get what I want. It’s real easy to outwit my detective husband Derek, who is quite serious and law-abiding, and so is Judy, by and large. I’m the one who pulls Penny into solving the mystery, even if I have to get into Derek’s briefcase and look at the autopsy report. I have zest, courage, and determination. I know how to get away with things. Piece of cake.

What do you like least about yourself?

In brand new situations, I’m rather shy and quiet. I like to wear lively clothes, but if everyone else, as in Tormentil Hall, is wearing pastels and grays, I feel out of it. That bothers me. Why should I care? I know I look beautiful.

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

This vacation in Wales was her idea, but I was skeptical. I’m black, and I’d never heard of anyone I knew or was kin to me going to Wales. London, yes, but not Wales. Must be a rather strange place. It turned out to be a very bad mistake.

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

Yes, but she has a will of her own sometimes, too. Once we were in Wales, I knew it was a mistake. Not one black person, and only one or two Americans, even as tourists. We were definitely in the wrong place for a relaxing vacation.

What is your greatest fear?

Being surrounded by racists, especially in another country. Here in central North Carolina, I know these old racists, but in Wales? Very strange, scary white people.

What makes you happy?

Living the way I want to live. I certainly wouldn’t have chosen freely to go to Wales.

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

I’d never go to the Gower Peninsula in Wales.

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

That old lady who was so bossy and so racist: Gilda Davis. I couldn’t stand her from the get-go.

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

No, I don’t want to be anyone but myself. But so far, foreign travel doesn’t interest me much.

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

The best thing about Judy Hogan is that she lets me be who I am, even when I’m depressed. Mostly, I’m lively and fun. Why not? You can check her out on her website. http://judyhogan.home.mindspring.com She blogs, too, mostly poems lately, and people all over the world read it. That makes her happy.

http://postmenopausalzest.blogspot.com

Judy Hogan has now published nine Penny Weaver mysteries, the first one being The Sands of Gower, back in 2015. In it Penny meets Kenneth Morgan, a Welsh policeman, and they fall in love. In later books they are married. They end up living partly in Riverdell, in a village in Central N.C., and partly in Wales on the Gower Peninsula.

What's next for you?

The tenth Penny Weaver mystery will be available May 1, 2019.

Tormentil Hall

A Penny Weaver Mystery, Book 8

In this eighth mystery I took Penny and Kenneth back to Wales with their dear friends Sammie and Derek Hargrave. Kenneth and Derek worked together in the Shagbark County Sheriff’s Dept. It occurred to me that I had never seen anyone black on Gower. I loved it there, the sea always close, the greens from all their rain, their beautiful flowers and so many footpaths to explore. But for Sammie and Derek, it meant racial discrimination and xenophobia. Sammie, always so confident and cheerful, was soon depressed, and then Derek was falsely arrested, and Kenneth, who worked for the CID out of Swansea, could do nothing to help. When I realized that my black characters would suffer in a way Penny had never imagined, I explored that. Who did kill the pushy woman they shared time with in the B&B? Penny eventually gets Sammie to help her solve the crime.

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BEST AND WORST OF AUTHOR LISA PRESTON'S CHARACTER RAINY DALE

As longtime readers of this blog, you know that we often like to freshen things up with new ideas for posts. Recently author Lois Winston, she who writes about me, decided to toss out a new idea to authors who might want to stop by for a visit.

If you’ve ever watched the Alan Alda/Ellen Burstyn movie Same Time Next Year, you’ll remember that George and Doris have a one-night-stand that winds up lasting decades, meeting for one weekend each year. Right from the beginning Doris is curious about George and his wife, but George is paranoid, worried that Doris might try to contact him or his wife after they part. So he comes up with the idea that they each limit their discussion about their respective spouses to two stories—one that highlights the best of their spouse and one that shows the spouse in a less than positive way.

So Lois’s idea for some interesting guest posts is that either the authors or their protagonists write a best of/worst of post on any topic they’d like. Our first author to accept the challenge is Lisa Preston. Read more about her and her books at her website. 

The Best and Worst of Rainy Dale

What a delight to visit Lois’s blog. I’m loving her idea of a nod to the classic characters discussing the best and worst of whomever or whatever as depicted in Same Time Next Year!

As some of you know, my Rainy Dale mystery series debuted in November with The Clincher. My editor at Skyhorse Publishing calls the novels cozy-plus. The stories offer the usual features of a cozy: no graphic or gratuitous violence; in fact, violence and sex tend to take place off-screen; little to no swearing; a small town setting full of lively, colorful characters; and an amateur detective.

This is probably the first and only series to offer a young woman horseshoer as the sleuth. And yet, the series pushes the cozy envelope on many of those traits, and the character development reveals a distinctly troubled past in a protagonist who is only in her young twenties.

The plus of the cozy+ gets us to the worst of Rainy, an aspect she’s taken a hit from on one or two reader reviews: she can be spiky. Overly defensive. Untrusting. Maybe a bit immature at times. But of course, the obverse of that coin is, she has plenty of room to grow. (I know I did at age twenty-three!) And as Rainy finds her way in the world, correcting her past as best she can, learning to love and be loved, enriching and empowering herself, she turns her lens outward.

She blossoms.

This segues to the best of Rainy Dale, the lion’s share that earned The Clincher a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, as well as praise from Library Journal, Kirkus, and ace wordsmiths like Craig Johnson, J.A. Jance, Margaret Coel, James Ziskin, and Reavis Wortham. (Notice that these are all top novelists who are not classified as cozy writers!) At her core, Rainy is a big-hearted young woman who cares. She cares about others, about doing the right thing, about kindness. And that makes her worth sticking with in this fictional small town in central Oregon as she makes her place in the world.

The Clincher

A Horseshoer Mystery

The Clincher is the first in a series of horseshoer mysteries featuring the irrepressible, irreverent, and irresistible Rainy Dale and her loveable and unlikely sidekick, the culinarily-inclined Guy. 

Clinching is the technique used to bend a driven horseshoe nail to hold the shoe to a hoof. Rainy Dale is The Clincher, a twenty-something high school-dropout turned farrier (horseshoer) who is haunted by a secret she carries.

Estranged from her California d-list actress momma and her ranch hand Texas daddy, she tracked down her childhood horse in small-town Oregon, a land full of cowboys and their horses, then stayed to build a life with her tools, steel, and forge. She's sleeping in a garage and trying not to fall for her landlord, the hapless and hopeful chef, Guy, who is determined to create the perfect soufflé while Rainy would prefer to just stuff her mouth with fuel for her physically demanding job. As the new kid in town, Rainy has an uphill battle to prove herself, but when one of her clients turns up dead, Rainy is in over her head as both a suspect and a seeker of the truth. 

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--INSTANT POT PORK CHOPS AND CARROTS WITH APPLE GRAVY

What could be better on a cold winter night than some stick-to-your-ribs pork chops? This recipe pairs with carrots and a thick apple gravy and goes well with egg noodles, rice, or mashed potatoes. Best of all, from start to finish takes less than an hour thanks to the Instant Pot.

Instant Pot Pork Chops and Carrots with Apple Gravy

serves 4

Ingredients:

4 3/4" thick pork chops

sea salt

1 onion, thinly sliced

6 carrots, peeled and cut in half

4 cooking apples, cored and quartered

1 T olive oil

1/4 cup Plus 1 T water

4 T unsalted butter 

4 T brown sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt

2 T flour

Turn on the Instant Pot to Sauté mode, normal heat. When the display reads "Hot" add the oil to the pot.

Season the pork chops with a sprinkling of sea salt on each side. Brown the pork chops, two at a time, on each side for about 4 minutes. Remove to a plate and set aside.

Add the onion and 1 T water. Cook the onion, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon and scraping the bottom of the pot to deglaze. When the onions are translucent and tender, add the butter and stir until melted.

Add the apples and 1/4 cup water. Stir well.

Add the pork chops and any juices on the plate back into the pot, setting them on top of the apples. Add the carrots on top of the pork chops.

Place the lid on the pot and set the steam release knob to the sealing position. Cancel the Sauté mode. Press Pressure Cook button and set the cook time for 10 minutes.

While the pork chops are cooking, mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.

When the cook cycle ends, let the pressure naturally release for 10 minutes, then  turn the steam release knob to manually release the remaining pressure.

When the pin in the lid drops, open the lid. Remove the pork chops and carrots to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.

Turn the Sauté mode back on. Add the brown sugar mixture to the apple mixture and stir.

Scoop out 1/2 cup of the hot liquid from the pot and place into a cup. Stir in the flour. Add the mixture to the apple gravy, stirring constantly. When the mixture thickens, turn off the pot. Pour apple gravy over pork chops and carrots before serving.

#CRAFTING WITH ANASTASIA--THOSE NOT SO SWEET LITTLE OLD LADY CRAFTERS

Although I’m the star of the eponymous Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, I want people to know that I’m actually a reluctant amateur sleuth. I’m not one of those busybodies, like Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher. I don’t want to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, but thanks to author Lois Winston, who saw fit to yank me out of my comfortable middle-class life and drop me squarely into a world of murder and mayhem, I have little choice. After all, as a figment of her imagination, I have no free will. Really, how often do moms and craft editors find themselves the target of killers? Apparently, quite often as I’ve discovered—at least in the world Lois has created.

I’ve also come to learn that people are never what they seem. For example, all those sweet little old ladies who live in senior communities? Many of them are not so sweet. In Revenge of the Crafty Corpse hours after I settled my mother-in-law Lucille into a senior living and rehab center to recuperate from surgery, her roommate was found dead. Because Lucille had been overheard stating, “If that damn woman doesn’t shut up, I’m going to strangle her!” she became the prime suspect when the death was ruled a homicide.

Lucille is many things – an annoying, mean, strident communist, not to mention a pain in everyone’s tush – but she’s no killer. As much as I’d like to be rid of her, I couldn’t stand by and watch her convicted of a crime she didn’t commit. So I reluctantly began snooping around, and you wouldn’t believe what I discovered!

Like many of Lois Winston’s ideas, the plot for Revenge of the Crafty Corpse came to her as a result of a news article. After reading an article about a murder in a nursing home, she began researching other murders at nursing homes. It seems the elderly don’t always sit around knitting, playing gin rummy, and watching Dr. Phil. Scandals abound, and revenge is rampant.

As one nurse warned me, “Watch your back.” Good advice to follow the next time you find yourself visiting an elderly relative at one of these places.

Revenge of the Crafty Corpse,

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 3

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR DEBRA H. GOLDSTEIN'S DEBUT SLEUTH SARAH BLAIR

Today we sit down for a chat with Sarah Blair of the new Sarah Blair Mystery Series by author Debra H. Goldstein.

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

Married at eighteen, divorced at twenty‑eight, I reluctantly swapped my luxury lifestyle for a cramped studio apartment and a small-town law firm receptionist job. With nothing much to show for the last decade but my feisty Siamese cat, RahRah, and some clumsy domestic skills, my life was in a bit of a rut before my author started pulling my strings.

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

My fierce loyalty to my family – my twin sister, my mother, my late mother-in-law and RahRah, my cat. There was a time I also would have said that about my attitude toward my husband, but he blew it when he fell in love with Jane, the bimbo.

What do you like least about yourself?

Being honest, what I like least about myself is that I tend to second-guess and doubt my abilities in everything. It doesn’t matter whether it is doing anything around a kitchen, performing my law firm job, attempting to flirt or date, or even answering your questions.  Am I telling you what you want to know?

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

Look, my twin sister is a gourmet cook. She even has a degree from Culinary Institute of America. Me, my good plates are paper. Would you believe my author made me help my sister and the Southwind restaurant crew out during an Expo? You can imagine how that turned out.

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

I argue with my author all the time. She keeps trying to push me into situations I don’t want to be in – like the kitchen or having to give up my cat. If I make a good enough point, she gives up, but usually she assures me I’ll be okay and makes me try whatever is in her mind. At that point, I do what she wants under protest and wait and see how she reacts to how things turn out. I don’t think the outcomes are always what my author predicted, but hey, I warned her.

What is your greatest fear?

My greatest fear is being in a kitchen. For me, it is a fate worse than death.

What makes you happy?

The simple love of my Siamese cat, RahRah, makes me happy. RahRah has a mind of his own, but there is something wonderful about how he cuddles against me when I’m sleeping.

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

If I could rewrite a part of my life, I would have continued getting my education, even when I married Bill at eighteen. I thought our life together was going to be magical, so I never prepared myself in case something happened. I knew things were going to be messy when we divorced, but I never thought things could fall apart as completely as they did.

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

Naming the person who bugs me the most is so-o-oh easy. It’s my ex-husband’s bimbo, Jane Clark. Not only did she steal my husband, but now she wants my cat, RahRah, too.

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

I’d trade places in a minute with my twin sister, Emily. We’re fraternal twins and while I’m lanky and dark haired, you can get the picture of how cute she is when I tell you she was a cheerleader in high school.  Besides her looks, she’s bright, has a good business head, and is a skilled trained chef. When she sets a goal, she goes after it without ever doubting herself.

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

My author, Debra H. Goldstein, is wonderful. She uses her middle initial because there are two other Debra Goldsteins out there – one is a doctor who writes lots of medical papers and articles, and one is younger, blonder, and writes about text flirting. My author’s website is https://www.DebraHGoldstein.com . She blogs every other Monday for her own blog, It’s Not Always a Mystery (https://www.DebraHGoldstein.com/blog) and also the 2^nd Friday of every month for The Stiletto Gang and the 3^rd Monday for Writers Who Kill.

What's next for you?

My first adventure just debuted in One Taste Too Many. My story will continue in October 2019 with Two Bites Too Many. 

One Taste Too Many

A Sarah Blair Mystery, book 1

For culinary challenged Sarah Blair, there’s only one thing scarier than cooking from scratch—murder!

Married at eighteen, divorced at twenty‑eight, Sarah Blair reluctantly swaps her luxury lifestyle for a cramped studio apartment and a law firm receptionist job in the tired town she never left. With nothing much to show for the last decade but her feisty Siamese cat, RahRah, and some clumsy domestic skills, she’s the polar opposite of her bubbly twin, Emily—an ambitious chef determined to take her culinary ambitions to the top at a local gourmet restaurant . . .

Sarah knew starting over would be messy. But things fall apart completely when her ex drops dead, seemingly poisoned by Emily’s award-winning rhubarb crisp. Now, with RahRah wanted by the woman who broke up her marriage and Emily wanted by the police for murder, Sarah needs to figure out the right recipe to crack the case before time runs out. Unfortunately, for a gal whose idea of good china is floral paper plates, catching the real killer and living to tell about it could mean facing a fate worse than death—being in the kitchen!

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MYSTERY AUTHOR MARY ELLEN HUGHES TALKS ABOUT CREATING A FICTITIOUS TOWN ON MARYLAND'S EASTERN SHORE

Mary Ellen Hughes is the bestselling author of the Pickled and Preserved Mysteries, the Craft Corner Mysteries, the Maggie Olenski Mysteries, and the Keepsake Cove Mysteries. Learn more about her and her books at her website. 

The Significance of Setting

How important is setting in a book? A lot. If your protagonist is number one, to my mind setting is a close number two, especially in a cozy mystery, the kind I write.

 Cozy mysteries are usually set in a small town, or at least in a city neighborhood where everyone knows each other.  I’ve chosen to create fictional towns for my mysteries, and I do it carefully, knowing that what I create will affect my entire story.

In my latest series, the Keepsake Cove Mysteries, I put my town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, an area that developed differently than the rest of the state because of its location. For many years, it was reachable mostly by boat by anyone on the western side of the bay. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge eventually changed that, but the culture that developed over three centuries remained to a large degree.

I built my fictional Keepsake Cove within easy reach of the bay bridge and not far from the historic town of Cambridge, in an area that Harriet Tubman’s underground railroad wound through in the nineteenth century, a fact that I worked into A Vintage Death.

The development of Ocean City on the coast brought droves of vacationers across the Eastern Shore to its beaches. When they’re not swimming or sunning, tourists love to shop, so small businesses, of course, sprang up. Though no town exactly like Keepsake Cove existed, it seemed quite possible that it could. So I created it and filled my town with shops that specialized in one or another kind of collectible, making it a popular stop for vacationers as well as collectors.

That setting was important to my protagonist, Callie Reed, whose life was changed (in A Fatal Collection) by the sudden death of her aunt, who owned a collectible music box shop in Keepsake Cove. When Callie inherited the shop along with her aunt’s little cottage, it gave her the push to break off a stale relationship and start a new life, as well as investigate the true cause of her aunt’s death.

In A Vintage Death, Callie was pulled into circumstances surrounding the death of a local B&B owner. This brought in more history of the Eastern Shore, which, I felt, added to the murder investigation.

Would my story have been different set anywhere else? Absolutely. Just as one character is affected by another, where they are impacts their decisions and what they are able to do. It can also add interest and color.

A side advantage is that the author—in this case, me—has a good excuse for fun excursions we refer to as ‘research.’ Spending a pleasant day learning about a lesser-known part of your state, camera in hand and meeting new people can be a wonderful break from sitting at your computer, and it only takes a day when your story’s location is nearby.

On the other hand, setting a book a bit farther away, like, say, Hawaii, might be a great idea, too. For the mystery possibilities, of course, not (cough, cough) necessarily for the ‘research.’

I think, though, with a little effort, I could deal with that side, too. We authors can rough it a little, when we have to.

A Vintage Death

A Keepsake Cove Mystery, Book 2

As the new owner of a music box store in Keepsake Cove, a quaint town full of collectible shops on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Callie Reed is eager to get more involved in her community. So she volunteers to plan the fall street decorations and welcome a visiting author who's come for a special book signing. But the celebratory mood is cut short when the local B&B owner is found dead, killed with a pair of vintage scissors.

Suspicion is cast on the victim's estranged wife, Dorothy, who owns Keepsake Cove's vintage sewing shop. Callie is sure Dorothy is innocent, and the visiting author agrees. Together, they begin their own investigation, only to discover that many people in Keepsake Cove have secrets. Secrets that are worth killing to keep.

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ANASTASIA'S NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS...

It’s the start of a new year and with it comes lots of well-intentioned resolutions. Have you made your list of resolutions? I’ve made mine—and already broken one of them, the one about passing up those yummy sweets in the break room. Here it is the first day back to work after New Year’s Day, and that resolution didn’t last twenty-four hours. Which makes me skeptical that my resolution to lose at least ten pounds this year doesn’t stand a chance thanks to a combination of our food editor’s baked goods and my lack of willpower when it comes to anything with sugar. Or chocolate. Sigh!

But I do have other resolutions on my list, and one of them is to carve out some time to read more for pleasure. I used to read at least a book a week back when I commuted to work on the train, but that changed when our offices moved to the suburbs and I had to trade the train for a car and bumper-to-bumper New Jersey traffic. Then life really took a nosedive, and I’ve been dividing any spare time I find between moonlighting to pay off enormous debt and catching killers.

It’s a long story…

However, if you’re interested, the entire sordid affair is documented in Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, the series author Lois Winston writes about me. And for the month of January the book, which received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist and was nominated for a Book of the Year Award by ForeWord Reviews, is on sale on Kindle for only .99 cents.

Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 1

When Anastasia Pollack's husband permanently cashes in his chips at a roulette table in Vegas, her comfortable middle-class life craps out. She's left with two teenage sons, a mountain of debt, and her hateful, cane-wielding Communist mother-in-law. Not to mention stunned disbelief over her late husband's secret gambling addiction, and the loan shark who's demanding fifty thousand dollars.

Anastasia's job as crafts editor for a magazine proves no respite when she discovers a dead body glued to her office chair. The victim, fashion editor Marlys Vandenburg, collected enemies and ex-lovers like Jimmy Choos on her ruthless climb to editor-in-chief. But when evidence surfaces of an illicit affair between Marlys and Anastasia's husband, Anastasia becomes the number one suspect.

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