#COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST #MYSTERY AUTHOR LINDA LOVELY TALKS NOVEL SETTINGS AND TOMATO SOUP

Author Linda Lovely writes the Brie Hooker Mysteries; the Marley Clark Mysteries; the Smart Women, Dumb Luck romantic thrillers; and LIES: Secrets Can Kill, a standalone romantic suspense set in 1938. She finds writing pure fiction isn’t a huge stretch given the years she’s spent penning PR and ad copy. Learn more about Linda and her books at her website. 

Fictional Carolina Settings Add ‘Real’ Atmosphere

While I’m not a native Southerner, I’ve called South Carolina home for decades, living in the coastal Low Country for 13 years and the lake and mountain-rich Upstate for 18 years. I’ve capitalized on these charming regions as settings for five of my eight published novels—plus the mystery-thriller I’m in the process of writing now.

But you won’t find the towns or counties inhabited by my contemporary heroines and heroes on any map. There is no Ardon County, though my cozy Brie Hooker Mystery series is set on a goat dairy farm in this fictitious county in South Carolina’s Upcountry. Nor is there a Dear Island—the private barrier island terrorized by a pun-loving murderer in Dear Killer. The town of Shelby is fictitious, too. It’s the home to fictional Blue Ridge University, the troubled campus threatened by homegrown terrorists in Dead Hunt.

I write mysteries, suspense, and thrillers. Ergo bad things happen. People die. Killers elude authorities. Developers are sometimes greedy. Public officials may lie or cheat. Deputies are occasionally crooked. Company owners may love nothing more than swindling their customers. Suffice it to say that unsavory, if not downright despicable, antagonists flourish in these novels.

I need to weave a cast of smart, unscrupulous characters into my mysteries to challenge my heroines and heroes. What I don’t need is a lawsuit brought by someone who believes the character is based on him or her. Also I don’t want to irk residents of a real community. I’m loath to suggest there might be bad apples among the law enforcement officers in any actual city, town, or county. And I’m not about to poke fun at the officials of any organization that might bare some slight resemblance to a real one in that location. That’s why I’ve given make-believe names to the institutions, companies, towns and counties populated with such characters.

Yet I still try to faithfully capture each region’s beauty and majesty as well as what can become frightening elements if my protagonists are alone, lost, or being pursued by ruthless villains. I hope this balance works.

In my new humorous mystery series, Brie, a vegan, lives with her Aunt Eva, a dedicated carnivore, who owns a 400-goat dairy enterprise. Fictional Ardon County is sandwiched between very real Greenville and Pickens Counties, allowing my heroine to travel to nearby locations many readers know well—Asheville in North Carolina, and Clemson, home of Clemson University, and Greenville, in South Carolina.

Using fictional locations with the local region’s flavor also gives me handy latitude. In my fictional Ardon County, I can place lakes, parks, and mountain trails conveniently near wherever I need them to serve my plot. However, I did take care to offer readers a variety of touchstones. In fact, Brie’s parents live in Pickens County, where her dad is a professor at Clemson University and her mom is the attorney for the City of Clemson.   

Though the settings for my books are fictional, I can close my eyes and recall exact moments in time. Paddling a kayak in the calm of an ocean inlet and hearing the cries of seagulls and smelling the acrid aroma of the marsh. Hiking a mountain trail and listening to the gurgle of a rushing stream and inhaling the scent of crushed pine needles in the shadowy twilight of the dense forest.

While my place names may be make believe, my South Carolina settings are as real as my most vivid memories allow.

And, right now in Upstate South Carolina, it’s harvest time for tomatoes! That means it’s also time to roast tomatoes and freeze them to make delicious tomato basil soup to enjoy when tailgating at fall football games or sitting by the fire on a snowy winter day.

Tomato Basil (Vegan…or Not)

Adapted from an Ina Garten recipe shared via the Foodnetwork.com. Here’s a link to the original.  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/roasted-tomato-basil-soup-recipe-1940376

The heroine of my humorous Brie Hooker Mystery series is a vegan chef. Brie lives on a dairy farm with four hundred goats and her Aunt Eva, a cantankerous carnivore who makes her living selling cheese. Needless to say, the two have very different ideas about what should be on the dinner menu. But even Aunt Eva loves this vegan version of tomato basil soup—though she pairs it with cheese. (Me, too, nowadays.)

I first modified this recipe, eliminating butter and chicken broth and making a few other tweaks, when my husband and I were giving a vegan diet a try. While we admire vegans, we missed cheese and eggs too much to persevere beyond two years. Nonetheless, I still regularly serve vegan and vegetarian dishes because they’re delicious and good for us.

Ingredients:

3+ lbs. fresh tomatoes, sliced  like an apple (leave skins on when you roast them)

1/4 cup olive oil (or slightly more if more tomatoes)

1 T. Kosher salt

2-3 T. olive oil

2 T. coconut oil

2 large sweet onions, chopped

4 small (16 oz) cans fire-roasted tomatoes with garlic

6 vegetable cubes

3 T Agave

4 cups fresh or handful of dried basil

1 tsp. thyme

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Toss the tomatoes with the olive oil and Kosher salt. Spread on nonstick cookie sheet. Roast for 45 minutes.

Place the vegetable cubes in two cups of water to soften.

In large stock pot, sauté onions in olive and coconut oil. Add the fresh roasted tomatoes and all the juice, then add everything else including the veggie cubes and water. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer uncovered stirring occasionally for 40 minutes.

Ladle small batches into food processor and puree.

Hints: You can use any tomatoes. This is an ideal way to use any excess from your summer garden. You can roast the tomatoes and freeze them and then use them to make batches of soup in the fall and winter. You can serve the soup with croutons or crusty bread.

Not a vegan? Add grated or hunks of sharp cheddar cheese to melt in the hot soup. You can also use chicken bouillon cubes rather than veggie cubes if you’re not doing vegan.

Bad Pick

Vegan Brie Hooker lives and works with her feisty Aunt Eva at Udderly Kidding Dairy, a hop, skip, and jump away from South Carolina’s Clemson University. Brie’s fun farm outreach attempt backfires when religious extremists decide goat yoga is a form of devil worship.

Picketers at Udderly’s gates soon become the least of Brie’s troubles. Not only is she accused of murder, she worries the death might actually be her fault.  Danger mounts when an old family friend’s visit ensnares Brie in a high-stakes feud between a U.S. Supreme Court nominee and the woman determined to expose his secrets.

In her personal life, Brie’s still torn between the town’s two most eligible bachelors. While she’s edging toward a decision, she must first survive a cunning killer adept at crafting murders that look like tragic accidents. Will Brie be another “accident” victim? Pay a visit to Udderly Kidding Dairy and find out!

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#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--CERAMIC BATHING BEAUTY

When most people think of ceramics, they think pottery wheels for “throwing” utilitarian items such as bowls, plates, and vases. Many ceramic artists create decidedly un-utilitarian items, though, sometimes utilizing a pottery wheel but often through freeform sculpting.

This mid-century inspired bathing beauty was a birthday gift from a friend years ago. She has no purpose other than to put a smile on my face—and I hope on yours.

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--INTERVIEW WITH MYSTERY AUTHOR JEANNETTE DE BEAUVOIR

Today we sit down for a chat with mystery and historical fiction author Jeannette de Beauvoir. Learn more about her and her books at her website.

When did you realize you wanted to write novels?

I wrote my first novel when I was eight years old. It was awful. I’ve kept improving on it since then!

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

I was first published when I was in graduate school, though soon thereafter one of my publishers went out of business, which rather put a damper on that experience!

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

Traditionally published.

Where do you write?

I’m terribly conventional: I love my desk. I have set it up to be both functional and inspirational, with everything I need to hand. There’s a tray filled with objects that are meaningful to me: a vase with fresh flowers, a calendar, a lamp, some books, and (of course) my MacBook. Oh, and my fountain pen collection.

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

I’ve always preferred silence, but recently I’ve been trying to listen to Radio Classique out of Paris in the background while I work. I turn it off a lot, though, to focus.

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

I’m very influenced by real events, whether they’re historical or present-day. My ex-husband used to say that any of my books could be subtitled, “Jeannette goes to therapy,” and in a sense that’s true: I figure things out by writing about them. Sometimes it’s just because stuff happens that you could never make up, and I grab it for my stories.

Describe your process for naming your character?

I took one of the Great Courses on the history of espionage and was quite taken with Sydney Reilly, the spy Ian Fleming based his James Bond character on. I liked his story and liked his name, too, so I adapted it for my protagonist in this series. It’s really important to find the right name, I think, especially when you’re doing a series, because you’re going to be stuck with that name for a long time! (And if I had it to do over, I’d probably give her a different name, as more than one person has gotten confused and thought Riley was her first name!)

Real settings or fictional towns?

Almost exclusively real settings. I love being able to delve into a real place, learn its history and secrets, and bring readers into a relationship with it. I love when people come to visit Provincetown they find that the places Sydney frequents are real, that many of the people she knows are real, and that they already feel at home here.

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

Sydney works at an inn that has a world-class restaurant. The quirk isn’t so much with a character, but in the way others refer to her: the inn’s diva chef Adrienne. We haven’t yet met her, but her influence on everyone who works at the inn is clear. And everyone says, “our diva chef Adrienne.” (I don’t know that I ever want her on stage, so to speak: I’d probably never be able to do justice to her after all this buildup!)

What’s your quirkiest quirk?

I’m not sure I have any, which makes me sound completely uninteresting! Though people who know me might have an opinion on it…

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

Trapeze by Simon Mawer. I was just starting to write a similar book—something about the women who parachuted into France during World War Two, amazingly brave people—when I read Trapeze and realized he’d written “my” book. And that he’d done a far better job of it than I would have.

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

The Catch-22 of publishing is that you want your books out there to be read, but once they’re published you can’t change anything about them. And the more you write, the better you are at it. I can’t re-read any of my books, because I want to do them over again.

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

People who don’t travel well. I live in a tourist destination, and many of the people who come here are respectful. Some aren’t; in fact I have to think that some behave in ways they wouldn’t at home. Every summer it makes me crazy. Come and visit, but be nice.

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

As many books as possible, an unending supply of Diet Coke (the kind with ginger and lime), and my cat Beckett. That actually sounds pretty much like paradise.

What was the worst job you’ve ever held?

In college I worked at a chocolate-chip cookie place. It was right across the way from a bar, and drunk people used to stumble over and demand raw cookie dough, or buy and eat too many cookies and then throw up. I don’t think I’ve had a chocolate chip cookie since.

What’s the best book you’ve ever read?

“Best” is such a difficult term. Staying inside my genre, it’s probably December by Phil Rickman. I’ve re-read it countless times.

Ocean or mountains?

Oh, ocean. I live on Cape Cod.

City girl/guy or country girl/guy?

City. I live in a small town now and while I love it, I need to get infusions of urban life on a regular basis. I spend a lot of time in Boston and Montréal.

What’s on the horizon for you?

Book Five of the Sydney Riley series, The Christmas Corpses, is coming out in November. There will be another book in 2020, but also a young-adult novel I’ve been working on; I’d like to finish that and see if there’s any interest in it.

A Killer Carnival

A Sydney Riley Provincetown Mystery, Book 4

This year’s P’town carnival parade begins with a real bang: a float exploding. No one’s been hurt, but wedding planner (and float decorator) Sydney Riley finds herself once more at the center of a mystery. Was the explosion meant to kill her? Why has her boyfriend’s sister, Boston Police Commissioner Karen Hakim, suddenly shown such an interest in the carnival goings-on? Are there really white supremacists at work on Cape Cod? Is her boyfriend Ali keeping secrets from her? Sydney will need to rely on her usual cast of characters and a few new ones for help in finding out what’s going on… before this killer carnival takes any more victims.

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CHARACTER INTERVIEW--JOLIE TUCKER OF THE CAST IRON SKILLET MYSTERIES

Today we’re joined by Jolie Tucker, Jodi Rath’s amateur sleuth from her Cast Iron Skillet Mystery Series. Learn more about Jodi and her books at her website. 

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

Pretty boring, just a small-town girl with a dream of opening a cast iron skillet restaurant. Now, I’m juggling co-owning the restaurant with my zany BFF, Ava, while trying to keep track of my off-beat family, figuring out an unconventional relationship with a detective who I just found out has M.S., oh yeah, and solving murders.

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

I’m a hard worker.

What do you like least about yourself?

I tend to put walls up around me to protect myself.

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

I’ve been smashed in the head with a rock and had someone try to slam my face into a curb—luckily, she had me survive both circumstances!

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

Well, yeah! Wouldn’t you argue with the person who wants to smash your head in with a rock and next thing you know she’s trying to get a character to slam your face in a curb? She’s a bit cray cray!

What is your greatest fear?

That one day the author will succeed with my demise. I have a feeling it won’t be peaceful.

What makes you happy?

My cats, my friends, my business, and dare I say my family.

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

My life would be much safer.

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

Easy—Lydia. Why the writer didn’t kill her off yet is beyond me. No, I take that back! That is going to far. Lydia and I are frenemies from way back. It all has to do with a guy—I know, I know—so cliché, but there you have it.

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

My Grandma Opal and my Aunt Fern both drive me batty, but they are two spunky women that know how to let loose and have fun. They don’t seem to let much get to them. I’d settle for either of them.

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

First off, she’s a tad deranged with all the murder, and making me fight for my life at times. I mean, give it a rest would ya? But, she does keep life exciting if nothing else! You can find out more at https://www.jodirath.com or sign up for her Mystery A Month newsletter for chances to win prizes every month at http://eepurl.com/dIfXdb

What's next for you?

 It looks like this Thanksgiving is going to be a lively one. Figures, after all I’ve been through this past year, I really need a break. Not this holiday—a teen advocate for the inner-city teens is found with a turkey baster in her ear dead at our community gathering in Turkey Basted to Death, coming November 15, 2019.

Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread Murder

A Cast Iron Skillet Mystery, Book 2

Welcome to Leavensport, Ohio where DEATH takes a delicious turn!

Financial fraud of elderly villagers in Leavensport, an urban sprawl threat to the community, disastrous dates, cross-sell marketing gone wrong, and another murder? Jolie Tucker is ready to try dating again. Well, she has no choice—since her family auctioned her off to the highest bidder. Her best friend, Ava, has agreed to a double date, but both friends find out hidden secrets about their partners as well as deception by one of the village’s own, who will soon be found dead. This plot is sure to be spicy!

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AUGUST IS NATIONAL READ A ROMANCE MONTH

Did you know that August is both Romance Awareness Month and National Read a Romance Month? Apparently neither do many retailers—from big box stores to little mom and pop shops along Main Street. They’re all currently featuring up to 75% off anything summer-related and have already set up displays featuring fall foliage and pumpkins to help sell everything from sweaters to leaf rakes—not to mention all things Halloween.

Need a new bathing suit? Good luck finding one in your size at this point. Did your gas grill die? Chances are you’ll find snow blowers taking up the floor space where the gas grills stood less than a month ago. We still have forty days of summer before the first day of autumn, but retailers are in a rush to get us thinking about the blizzards to come months from now.

And since we’ve got two and a half months before costumed kids start ringing our doorbells in search of candy treats, why not enjoy the remainder of summer instead of dreading all the white stuff to come? Stretch out on a lounge chair with a good book. Just don’t forget the sunscreen. And speaking of sunscreen, remember the sun doesn’t care about retail market trends. So it might be a good idea to run out and grab an extra bottle before they’re replaced by bags of Halloween candy on store shelves.

Did you know Lois Winston, the author who gets her kicks finding ways to torment me with dead bodies, got her start as a romance author? If you’re looking for a romance to celebrate National Read a Romance Month, check out Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, a romantic suspense loosely based on an actual murder that took place in the Philadelphia suburbs in the 1990’s. It was Lois’s second published novel. The Gainesville Daily Register called it “a romance novel for the smart and sassy crowd” and Booklist called it “a contemporary romance with a whole lot of twists and turns…keeps you guessing as to what is going to happen next.”

Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception

Life has delivered one sucker punch after another to Emma Wadsworth. As a matter of fact, you could say the poor little rich girl is the ultimate poster child for Money Can’t Buy Happiness — even if she is no longer a child.

Billionaire real estate stud Logan Crawford is as famous for his less-than-platinum reputation as he is his business empire. In thirty-eight years he’s never fallen in love, and that’s just fine with him — until he meets Emma.

But Emma’s not buying into Logan’s seductive ways. Well, maybe just a little, but she’s definitely going into the affair with her eyes wide open. She’s no fool. At least not any more. Her deceased husband saw to that. Besides, she knows Logan will catch the first jet out of Philadelphia once he learns her secrets.

Except things don’t go exactly as Emma has predicted, and when Philadelphia’s most beloved citizen become the city’s most notorious criminal, she needs to do a lot more than clear her name if she wants to save her budding romance with the billionaire hunk someone is willing to kill for.

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--MYSTERY AND PEACH JAM FROM MYSTERY AUTHOR WENDY HORNSBY

Edgar-Award winning author Wendy Hornsby has been described as “a genteel college professor by day, and by night a purveyor of murder most foul.” After teaching for thirty-eight years, she abandoned all pretense of gentility in order to write full time. Learn more about Wendy and her books at her website. 

In a Jam

Among the greater pleasures of summer, for me, is mucking about in the garden. There is something therapeutic about digging in the dirt, listening to bird song, watching bees at their work, and, of course, seeing again the strange and wonderful process of plants maturing into whatever they were destined to become when I put seed into the soil. And then suddenly everything ripens at the very same time and has to be eaten or distributed or processed immediately.

It seemed natural to me that Maggie MacGowen, the protagonist of my mystery series, would have grown up, as I did, with big backyard gardens and that gardening would somehow find its way into my books, and even become the focus of a story or two.

Several years ago, my husband and I took what we now call the Eat, Drink, and Be Merry research tour of Normandy, France. We learned about making cheese and cider and decided that we loved the area so much that we should retire there. That dream, however, was entirely impractical. So I did the next best thing: I found a reason for Maggie MacGowen to go to Normandy as an excuse for us to visit whenever we could.

In The Paramour’s Daughter Maggie MacGowen goes to the Camembert region of Normandy to meet her birth mother’s family for the first time. Like my husband and I, she learned about making cheese and cider, and from her grandmother learned how to make jam from summer fruit, just as my mother taught me.

By the time the book was published, Maggie, who is far bolder than I am, had acquired a job with French television and moved to Paris, something I still dream of doing, as impractical as it remains. I know that Maggie visits the family farm in Normandy in summer to make jam and cheese so that she will have gifts from the garden to offer friends and hosts throughout the year, as I do.

On my webpage, you can find instructions for making Camembert cheese, but as the recipe begins with milk fresh from the cow’s udder, finding ingredients may be difficult.

Instead, here is the traditional French recipe for peach jam that I make every summer. The recipe calls for only fruit, sugar, and lemon juice, and no purchased pectin. The jam may not be as firm as the other, but it sets up well and as long as you keep the sugar to fruit ratio the same, you can make small batches. Don’t double the recipe, however. Instead, make multiple batches. The process looks complicated, but it gets easier with practice. Just make sure that all your equipment is ready when you begin.

French Method for Peach Jam
7 cups sliced peaches
3 cups sugar
Juice of one large lemon
1/4 tsp unsalted butter

If you’ve never canned before, you can find directions for preparing jars online. You need 2 big pots—one deep enough to cover upright jars completely with water and an 8 qt. heavy bottom pot for cooking jam.

1. Peel, pit, and slice peaches.

2. In a heavy-bottom pot, combine all ingredients. Let sit for 1-2 hours for juice to develop, then bring to a full boil while you mash the fruit with a stick blender or potato masher. Boil for 25-30 minutes, stirring constantly. Drop a teaspoonful onto chilled plate. Mixture should gel. If not, cook 5 more minutes.

3. When ready, skim off foam with metal spoon.

4. Ladle jam into sterilized jars to 1/4” of top. Clean jar rims, put on lids and rings, and place into pot hot water to cover. Simmer for 15 minutes.

5. Remove jars from water. The nipple on every lid should pop. Any that don’t, refrigerate.

A Bouquet of Rue

Filmmaker Maggie MacGowen moves to France ready to settle into a new job with a French television network and a new life with diplomat Jean-Paul Bernard. Maggie soon discovers that under the peaceful veneer of the leafy Paris suburb where she now lives, there are deep and troubling fissures. At first she is an object of curiosity, the woman taking the place of Jean-Paul’s beloved, deceased wife. But as she is drawn into the search for a girl named Ophelia, and tries to stop the persecution of a Muslim immigrant boy, she is viewed by the town an interloper, the outsider. As Maggie tells an interviewer, sometimes an outsider can hold up a mirror that reveals what we have become blind to. But are her new neighbors willing to look into that mirror? She will learn that the human spirit has tremendous resilience—until it snaps.

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#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--HANDCRAFTED NEW ORLEANS VOODOO GOD TO OVERCOME REJECTION

Rejection is something with which most authors are quite familiar. Even very famous writers—everyone from Voltaire to Stephen King received their share of “thanks but no thanks” letters from editors. So it’s no surprise that Lois Winston, she who writes about me, collected a thick stack of rejection letters before selling her first novel.

There’s some speculation that the tide finally turned in Lois’s favor after her agent bought her a handcrafted Voodoo doll in New Orleans. This was not just any souvenir Voodoo doll, though. This was a Voodoo God to Overcome Rejection. The instructions stated:

Your doll is a medium to focus on a problem or desire. You can personalize with hair, small photo, or any small personal item. Tuck them into doll. To make a ceremony, every morning and every evening light a candle or incense stick. Stick pin in doll—heart for good, stomach for bad. Say aloud three times your desire or intention. Concentrate on your objective for three minutes. Repeat for nine days.

Lois refuses to say whether or not she performed this ceremony, but she did eventually sell her first book and has gone on to publish many more, including eight books and three novellas about me. Recently she received a proof copy of the trade paperback of Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide, the eighth Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, shown above with the Voodoo God to Overcome Rejection.

Handmade Ho-Ho Homicide (Pre-order ebook now; print available 10/1)

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 8

Two and a half weeks ago magazine crafts editor Anastasia Pollack arrived home to find Ira Pollack, her half-brother-in-law, had blinged out her home with enough Christmas lights to rival Rockefeller Center. Now he’s crammed her small yard with enormous cavorting inflatable characters. She and photojournalist boyfriend (and possible spy) Zack Barnes pack up the unwanted lawn decorations to return to Ira. They arrive to find his yard the scene of an over-the-top Christmas extravaganza. His neighbors are not happy with the animatronics, laser light show, and blaring music creating traffic jams on their normally quiet street. One of them expresses his displeasure with his fists before running off.

In the excitement, the deflated lawn ornaments are never returned to Ira. The next morning Anastasia once again heads to his house before work to drop them off. When she arrives, she discovers Ira’s attacker dead in Santa’s sleigh. Ira becomes the prime suspect in the man’s murder and begs Anastasia to help clear his name. But Anastasia has promised her sons she’ll keep her nose out of police business. What’s a reluctant amateur sleuth to do?

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