AN INTERVIEW WITH MYSTERY AUTHOR SHERRY MORRIS

Today we sit down for a chat with multi-genre author Sherry Morris who writes cozy mysteries, romantic suspense, time travel, and twentieth century historical mysteries. Learn more about Sherry and her books at her blog.

When did you realize you wanted to write novels? 

At the turn of the century.

 

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

About two years.

 

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

I began traditionally published back in 2005 as eBooks were evolving. I have my rights back and am now indie published.

 

Where do you write? 

At home. Either on my desktop in the guest room or on my laptop in the dining room, family room, or outside on the lanai.

 

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

Silence is absolutely required. I can’t write with music on, I’ll start typing the lyrics. 

 

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

I usually start with a situation or character from real life, then my muse says and does things Sherry never would and the story takes hold.

 

Describe your process for naming your character? 

It usually takes at least fifty pages before I settle on the character’s name. I do a lot of search and replace.

 

Real settings or fictional towns? 

Both

 

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

She shakes the pixie dust in her Tinkerbelle watch.

 

What’s your quirkiest quirk? 

I won’t eat anything that has a speck of mayonnaise in it or near it.

 

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

Take the Monkeys and Run by Karen Cantwell because it’s as kooky as what I write, and it was set in Northern Virginia, where I raised my family.

 

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

I wish I wouldn’t have stopped writing ten years ago when I was rejected by my old critique group.

 

What’s your biggest pet peeve? 

I don’t like being singled out or told I can’t do something that everyone else is doing.

 

You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves? Sunscreen, matches, and an alpha male to protect me.

 

What was the worst job you’ve ever held? 

Hanging raison-colored sweaters in a factory.

 

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

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

Ocean or mountains? 

Ocean

 

City girl/guy or country girl/guy? 

Suburban girl

 

What’s on the horizon for you? 

Finishing a sequel to Inappropriate, finally finding my audience and marketing to them, becoming an awesome positive presence in my newborn granddaughter’s world.

 

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

I recently moved from Virginia, hoping to get away from a yard frequented by snakes (more than 2 dozen last summer) to Florida, where a cottonmouth snake greeted us the first week. Our new densely developed community is overflowing with alligators. We’ve also spotted coyotes, wild boars, and a bear.

 

Hundred Dollar Bill

A 20th Century American History Mystery, Book 1

She's a Secret Service Agent in FDR's Washington...

In Book 1 of the 20th Century American History Mystery Series, an alluring Secret Service Agent must apprehend a counterfeiter code-named Hundred Dollar Bill. He's a crooked cop with blue eyes deeper than the devil. She crosses a line and is framed for murder.

With no means of proving her innocence, she goes on the lamb. The agent tasked to apprehend her has a problem. He's crazy in love with this dame.

Meanwhile at the White House, Eleanor Roosevelt finds a pearl-handled pistol in the President's secretary's desk. Not wanting to alarm her husband, Mrs. Roosevelt puts the floozy under surveillance.

It's all a game of cat and mouse from Washington to the Florida Keys.

If you like Alfred Hitchcock movies, you'll love this historical action adventure.

 

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AUTHOR KAREN McCULLOUGH ON BOOK CLUBS AND HER BOOK CLUB CENTERED SERIES

Karen McCullough is the award-winning author of almost two dozen published novels and novellas in the mystery, romance, suspense, and fantasy genres, including the Market Center Mysteries Series and the No Brides Club Romance Series. Today she joins us to talk about book clubs. Learn more about her and her books at her website and blog.

A Book Series Joined Together by a Book Club

By Karen McCullough

 

Confession: Although my most recent book, Falling for the Deputy, is part of a series centered around a group of women who belong to the Hopeless Romantics book club, I’ve never belonged to a book club myself. Everything I know about them, I’ve learned from listening to others talk about the ones they are in. 

 

I’ve often thought it would be fun to be part of a group focused on talking about books, but I’m not sure it would work for me. For one thing, my time is at a premium. I already have too many demanding jobs. When I do have time to read, I generally want something light and entertaining.

 

But more importantly, I’m an author. That has changed my relationship with books and the way I read, especially fiction. I suspect my slant is akin to the way people in the movie industry watch films. Instead of being able to sink into the dream being presented in words or on screen, we wonder about the tricks, maneuvers, and sleight of hand the creators are using to convince us that what we’re reading or seeing is true.

 

I write romance, mysteries, suspense, and paranormal, and I’ve read widely in all of those genres. I grew up reading a lot of mystery novels because my dad had an extensive library. I gobbled up Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, and John D. McDonald in my teenage years, after graduating from Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.

 

Back in those days, the books often surprised and amazed me by producing solutions I didn’t see coming.

 

Now, I can tell when the author is setting up that person we casually met in chapter three, who appears to be just an interested friend, as the murderer. It’s all too clear that the grumpy but good-looking sheriff is going to end up being a love interest. The irritating neighbor will have a key piece of information. 

 

That scene in Harry Potter book six, between Snape and Dumbledore? Most people experienced it one way. I recognized the careful wording and realized there was another way to read it. I knew where the author was going with it.

 

When I read books now, I can’t help considering how the author is building specific characters, even down to the words he or she uses to describe them. I think about the setting and background and how they relate to what’s happening. 

 

Basically, it’s hard to sink into the dream and let the characters carry me away. Instead, I tend to try to take a book apart and see what makes it tick. 

 

That doesn’t mean an author can’t surprise me on occasion. It’s rare but I love it when it does happen.

 

Still, I think authors read books differently from the way most readers and book clubs seem to approach them. Readers want to talk about how the books affected them, whether they liked the characters, whether the plot worked, what they thought the author intended, whether it succeeded or not, etc. They explore whether the book worked for them.

 

An author wants to know what a fellow writer did to make it work.

 

Falling for the Deputy

Hopeless Romantics of Willow Ridge, Book 4

 

After losing at love twice, Barbara Wilton needs a change, some place far from her home in Boston, so she takes a position as manager of a small branch bank in Willow Ridge, Georgia. She’s done with relationships and ready to concentrate on her career. The experience in Willow Ridge will help her move forward in the banking industry, but she doesn’t plan to stay there permanently. Nevertheless, an invitation to join the Hopeless Romantics book club, a position on a planning committee, helping a little league team that needs coaching, and being adopted by a stray dog begin to wind her into the community. Meeting Deputy Chris Harper, a former Charlotte police officer until his marriage fell apart, draws her even deeper. But when money goes missing and Barbara becomes the chief suspect, duty and feelings collide.

 

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AN INTERVIEW WITH ANTIQUE AND ART DEALER EDIE BROWN FROM AUTHOR TRISH ESDEN'S SCANDAL MOUNTAIN ANTIQUES MYSTERIES

Today we sit down for a chat with Edie Brown from author Trish Esden’s Scandal Mountain Antiques Mystery series. 

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

The week before The Art of the Decoy begins, I’d just finished an internship at Christie’s auction house in New York City. I’d left the city and was planning on enjoying a vagabond life for the summer, driving around New England in my van, buying, and selling antiques and art at flea markets and shows. 

 

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

Actually, I like quite a few things about myself. My determination for one. The most unique trait would be my knack for finding quality antiques and art, even when they’re hidden amid piles of fakes and other junk. 

 

What do you like least about yourself?

How hard it is to get past events that happened years ago, such as witnessing the single-engine plane crash that killed my grandparents. 

 

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

My goodness, Trish is always coming up with strange situations to put me in. But that’s probably because she’s an antique dealer, and she knows firsthand that weird situations happen in real life as well as in the Scandal Mountain Mystery Series. 

 

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

Making me face my feelings toward my mom and finding forgiveness. My mom and I have always had a hard time getting along for a variety of reasons. We’ve both held onto our resentments for far too long. 

 

What is your greatest fear?

Having the antique and art business my grandparents lovingly created fail under my watch. 

 

What makes you happy?

Lots of things! The hunt for amazing antiques and art. Spending time with my uncle Tuck and our new employee Kala. Being home in Vermont. I love the town of Scandal Mountain and the historic brick house I grew up in. Not to mention the possibility of rekindling the hot romance I had with Shane Payton, my ex-probation officer.  

 

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

My grandparents would never have died in the plane crash. I miss and love them so much. A part of my heart was crushed when I failed to save them that day, no matter how impossible that would have been. 

 

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

Felix Graham. He’s a snob and a womanizer—and my family’s biggest competition in the antique and art business. Rumor also has it he might have had a finger in my mom’s arrest for art forgery. 

 

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

If I could do anything, it would be turn back time rather than trade places. Things are difficult right now business-wise and emotionally. When I was young, life seems so much easier. Hmmm… on second thought, I’d like to trade places with our new employee Kala for a couple of hours. I’d really like to find out more about her mysterious past, and that’s one way I could do it. 

 

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

Trish Esden loves museums, gardens, wilderness, dogs, and birds, in various orders depending on the day. She lives in northern Vermont where she deals antiques with her husband, a profession she’s been involved with since her teens. Don’t ask what her favorite type of antique is. She loves hunting down old bottles and rusty barn junk as much as she enjoys fine art and furnishings.

 

Trish loves interacting with fans, so be sure to follow her on social media and sign up for her newsletter, too. Links and information about the Scandal Mountain Antiques Mystery Series are on her website. 

 

What's next for you?

Rumor has it that I’m going to get tangled up in an adventure that dives into the world of galleries, art connoisseurs, and high-stake schemes, as I race to untangle a mystery behind an unsettling piece of outsider art.

 

The Art of the Decoy

A Scandal Mountain Antiques Mystery, Book 

 

It should have been a simple appraisal. If it weren’t for the thief. 

 

After her mother is sent to prison for art forgery, Edie Brown returns to Northern Vermont to rebuild her family’s fine art and antiques business. She’s certain she can do it now that her mother’s gone. After all, butting heads with her mom over bad business practices was what drove Edie away three years ago, including a screwup that landed Edie on probation for selling stolen property. 

 

When Edie scores a job appraising a waterfowl decoy collection at a hoarder’s farmhouse, she’s determined to take advantage of the situation to rebuild the business’s tarnished reputation and dwindling coffers. In lieu of payment, Edie intends to cherry-pick an exceptional decoy carved by the client’s renowned Quebecoise folk artist ancestors. Only the tables turn when the collection vanishes.   

 

Accused of the theft, Edie’s terrified that the fallout will destroy the business and land her in prison next to her mom. She convinces the client to give her five days to find and return the decoys before calling the authorities. Desperate, she digs into the underbelly of the local antiques and art world. When Edie uncovers a possible link between the decoy theft and a deadly robbery at a Quebec museum, she longs to ask her ex-probation officer, and ex-lover, for help. But she suspects his recent interest in rekindling their romance may hide a darker motive. 

 

With the help of her eccentric uncle Tuck and Kala, their enigmatic new employee, Edie must risk all she holds dear to expose the thieves and recover the decoys before the FBI’s Art Crime Team or the ruthless thieves themselves catch up with her.  

 

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AN INTERVIEW WITH SANDY MOSS FROM AUTHOR E.J. COPPERMAN'S JERSEY GIRL LEGAL MYSTERY SERIES

Today we sit down for a chat with Sandy Moss from author E.J. Copperman’s Jersey Girl Legal Mystery Series.

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

Author? What author? This stuff happens to me, and then I tell the story. Before I moved here to Los Angeles I was an assistant county prosecutor (among many) in New Jersey. I liked the work until I didn’t and there was the matter of the not-so-assistant county prosecutor who… let’s say I hadn’t heard he was married until it was time for me to move to Los Angeles. 

 

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

I don’t like to brag, but since you asked… I’d have to say my ability to roll with the punches. Whatever happens, I tend to react to it and have a plan quickly. Patrick says I’m brilliant, but he’s wrong. And the British use that word differently anyway.

 

What do you like least about yourself?

I compare myself to other women, often physically, and I shouldn’t. Especially in LA, where all the most beautiful women come to try and be movie stars and some of them actually succeed. But it’s wrong to judge myself or anyone else based on appearance. So I shouldn’t do that. But I do. 

 

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

Again with this author thing. I’ve had a lot of strange stuff happen to me, particularly since I moved to California, but being kidnapped in a van was definitely among the weirdest. I don’t recommend it. 

 

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

I don’t know how to get this across to you: There. Is. No. Author. I’M the author, except the things that happen to me aren’t scripted. They just happen. Do I sound like I’m arguing? Maybe so, but take into account that there’s no one here but me, so that should tell you something. 

 

What is your greatest fear?

I’m not nuts for death. I prefer to avoid it whenever possible. But I also have abandonment issues and I’m not a hundred percent sure why. I don’t mind being alone, but I always like to know there’s someone I can call. Patrick and my best friend Angie are great at that.

 

What makes you happy?

Winning a court case based on solid precedent and law. Sometimes I have to get a little, um, creative in the courtroom, but the means to win the case are always based on the existing law. I respect that above all else. 

 

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

I’d get rid of all the times someone pointed a gun at me. It’s become something of a regular occurrence since I moved out here and frankly, it leaves a lot to be desired.

 

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

It’s going to sound funny because my boyfriend is a famous, handsome movie star, but he also drives me nuts. I love him, but Patrick lives in a world of adoring fans and assistants (including Angie) who will make anything he wants simply appear. He’s gotten so used to it he thinks everyone lives like that, and I keep showing him again and again that we don’t. He thinks that’s adorable. 

 

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

I’m comfortable being me, but I do wish sometimes that I knew what Det. Lt. K.C. Trench has in his police department computer. Getting Trench to tell you anything is like squeezing blood from a stone, although why you’d want stone blood is something I can’t really understand. 

 

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

(Slaps herself in the forehead.) Anything you want to know about ME you can find at www.ejcopperman.com. 

 

<And just as an aside, what’s that “her” stuff?>

 

What's next for you?

A new “adventure” (although for me the word “ordeal” leaps to mind) is due in December, and for reasons that might or might not become clear, it’s called And Justice for Mall. Until then Witness for the Persecution will just have to do. After that, I’m hoping to be doing some very dull family law work.

 

Witness to the Persecution 

A Jersey Girl Legal Mystery, Book 3

 

Movie premiers, murder charges, and celebrity shenanigans? It's all in a day's work for New Jersey prosecutor turned LA family lawyer Sandy Moss.

 

Former New Jersey prosecutor Sandy Moss moved to a prestigious Los Angeles law firm to make a new start as a family lawyer. So it seems a little unfair that Seaton, Taylor have created a criminal law division specifically for her. Just because she's successfully defended two murder trials, it doesn't mean she likes them!

 

But when abrasive Hollywood movie director Robert Reeves is accused of murdering a stuntman on set, Sandy finds she can't say no when he demands her help. Robert might be an unpleasant, egotistical liar, but something tells Sandy that he's innocent - even if no one else can see it.

 

At least this time, she reassures herself, her charismatic, adorable, and oh so annoying TV star boyfriend, Patrick McNabb, isn't involved in the case. He isn't...right?

 

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY - AUTHOR TERRI BENSON SETS HER NEW COZY MYSTERY SERIES IN THE WORLD OF CLASSIC CARS

A Divco

A life-long writer, Terri Benson is the author of one cozy mystery and two historical romance novels and nearly a hundred articles and short stories – many award-winning. She presents workshops at writer’s conferences, and teaches night classes at Western Colorado Community College.  Terri spends her non-writing time working at a Business Incubator, camping, Jeeping, and dirt biking with her junior-high-school sweetheart/husband of 40+ years and a succession of Brittany spaniels. Learn more about her and her books and view some beautiful classic cars at her website.

Classics Never Go Out of Style!

I first fell in love with Classic Cars when I started reading Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt novels. There was usually a photo of the car featured in the book on the back cover, and I just loved the beautiful flowing lines and the bits of history from the story. From there, I started going to local and regional car shows and eventually to the big auction houses like Mecum and Barrett Jackson. My husband shares my interest old cars, although he likes the post-1950s, and I’m more interested in the pre-1950s. 

 

My first Bad Carma was a short story that morphed into a full-blown novel a few years later. I shopped that story, but responses were that it was a fun read, but didn’t have enough mystery to carry it in that genre. By then, I had a second story nearly finished, and ended up cannibalizing the first one to fill out the second, and The Pickup Artist was born. It took me another year or two to get brave enough to submit it to agents and editors. During the midst of COVID, I received a contract offer from Literary Wanderlust, and I was in the driver’s seat in a big way! The Pickup Artist, a Bad Carma Mystery, will release April 1 in print and e-book, and, if things work right, audio as well.

 

I have a rather strange system for deciding what the story will be. First, I find a car I like, then do research on it. Once I know when it was built, and where, I come up with a title which may be a play on words with multiple meanings. Then I work through a plausible story for how it got from “there” in time, to “now,” and craft a contemporary mystery to go along for the ride.

 

I have my cast of main characters, but each Bad Carma comes with new characters, both good and bad. Renni Delacroix, my protagonist, has the ability—or curse as she calls it—of touching a car and then seeing its history in her dreams (or nightmares as the case often is). That history gives her a mystery to solve, because she hates an incomplete story. The current mystery may not be directly related to the car in question, but she still has to use skills honed over years of finding the provenance of cars (their ownership history), as well as hard-to-find parts, to track down clues. She’s also stubborn (to a fault if you believe her friends and family) and refuses to give up until she has “the rest of the story.”

 

Renni’s gift has caused her no end of trouble ever since she was nine and it suddenly appeared, immediately following the death of her parents in a car accident. That trouble makes her very leery of talking about it, because she’s lost friends and more over the years when they discovered she’s “different.” She also suffers from the gift, because she has to relive some of the owner’s worst moments. Other times, she gets to see happiness and excitement, as well as a lot of boring applications of makeup in the rearview mirrors or nose picking, but she’d take that any day over the other.

 

When I go to car shows or auctions, I take photos of cars and trucks that catch my eye. They may not be the most expensive, and I don’t care if they’re in pristine condition or straight off the farm. I look for the small details—the badges (maker logos), hood ornaments, detailed chrome on horns, interiors and dashboards, and the sweep and curves of the bodies. But, and you’ll laugh, my dream vehicle right now is a Divco. The photo is one I saw at the Scottsdale Barrett Jackson show earlier this year. You might think I’m strange, but that little bugger went for $120,000! There’s one here in town that I have my eye on, but I don’t know if the owner will ever consider selling.  If you ever see one tooling down the road with Delacroix Restoration’s logo on the side, you’ll know I did it!

 

The Pickup Artist

A Bad Carma Mystery, Book 1

Classic car restorer Renni Delacroix has a unique gift, one kept carefully hidden: when she touches a car, she sees its history. Focused on building her business in the small town of Rampart, Colorado, she hides the truth of her psychic ability.

 

But when a Marmon pickup is delivered, visions of terrified women jolt her clean off the old truck. She has no choice but to come forward, especially since one of the women was her best friend, murdered six months earlier. Renni explains what she saw to Detective Matt Brody. Skeptical, he's surprised to find evidence the Marmon belonged to a serial killer known as the Rocky Mountain High Killer.

 

While battling Brody's suspicions, and her growing attraction to him, Renni uses skills honed hunting down classic parts to unearth the killer. But will she be able to give their identity to Brody before she loses everything—her job, her home...even her life?

 

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ANASTASIA'S DREAM CAST

Casting the Movie Version of my Life

By Anastasia Pollack

Several years ago, a producer expressed interest in the eponymous series author Lois Winston writes about me. This producer pitched the idea to the production company where she worked. Everyone was onboard. Lois met with the owner and two producers, and they optioned The Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. They then set about hiring a writer to create a treatment to pitch the idea to various networks. This production company had already created many movies and series for a variety of cable networks. I was over the moon!

 

Lois cautioned me not to get too excited, though. She’d been down this road twice before with Talk Gertie to Me, the humorous women’s fiction that was her first published book. She knew that 99.99% of all books optioned for movies or TV are never made. Still, I couldn’t help but have high hopes. I figured the universe owed me, given all the murder and mayhem Lois subjects me to in each book.

Needless to say, the production company struck out. I knew I was too much of a sassy Jersey Girl for Hallmark mysteries, but I really thought one of the other networks would enjoy getting to know me. But as of now, I won’t be ready for my closeup anytime soon. However, since hope springs eternal, I thought I’d share with you my dream cast.

 

I think Tina Fey would be an absolutely perfect choice to play me. Lois agrees. And who better to play my BFF food editor Cloris McWerther than Tina’s bestie Amy Pohler (even if Cloris is a Size Two dripping wet.)

As for Zack, Lois has described him as someone whose DNA cavorted in the same primordial pool as Hugh Jackman, Pierce Brosnan, and Antonio Banderas. I’d take any of those hunks, but she’s pushing for Hugh Jackman because the guy can sing and dance. To my knowledge, Zack is neither a singer nor a dancer, and I should know, right? But if you know anything about my author, you know she’d be perfectly happy spending the rest of her life on Broadway—and I don’t mean Broadway, Nashville.

 

I’m thinking possibly Kelsey Grammer as Anastasia’s half-brother-in-law Ira Pollack and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Tino Martinelli.

The remainder of the cast gets a bit tricky because I’d have to fiddle with the space/time continuum. I’d love to see Mama played by Ellen Burstyn but the Ellen Burstyn of the 1980s.

 

Unfortunately, two of my other choices are no longer with us. So I’d have to fiddle with the universe even more to make these casting choices work. If you ever watched The Sopranos, you’ll know Nancy Marchand, who played Tony’s mother Livia Soprano, would be a perfect Lucille. And Estelle Getty, Sophia from The Golden Girls, would have been perfect as Harriet Kleinhample.

 

As for Nick, Alex, Sophie, and Sophie’s dad Shane, I haven’t pinned those down yet. Any suggestions?

P.S.: Ralph has demanded to play himself, claiming Hollywood would have a hard time finding another African Grey parrot with as much knowledge of Shakespeare.

#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--AUTHOR LOIS WINSTON ON HOW EAVESDROPPING GAVE BIRTH TO A COZY AMATEUR SLEUTH

Since March is National Crafts Month, it seemed fitting to turn the blog over today to my author Lois Winston. Keep reading to learn how her craft designing career was born from eavesdropping on a conversation and how that career eventually led to Lois creating me, the eponymous reluctant sleuth of her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. 

Two Roads Diverged & I Took Both

(With apologies to Robert Frost!)

By Lois Winston

 

When I was in college, I taught myself embroidery and needlepoint. Because I was majoring in graphic design and illustration, I designed my own projects rather than buying kits, which were also too expensive a luxury for someone putting herself through school on scholarships, student loans, and various part-time jobs. I even incorporated needlework into my junior year end-of-term project in my photography class.

Fast-forward a few years and I’m now a new mother and a freelance graphic designer. One day I was in a needlework shop and overheard a conversation between the shop owner and a customer. The customer mentioned having sold some designs to a needlework company located a few miles from where I lived. When I got home, I called the company and set up an appointment to show my designs. A week later I walked out of that initial meeting with an assignment to design a line of counted cross stitch kits. (I went home and quickly taught myself how to do counted cross stitch!)

That assignment led to many more for that company and other kit manufacturers, as well as designing for various craft and needlework magazines, women’s magazines, and book publishers. Over the years I’ve worked as a craft book editor, a design coordinator, and the head designer for several needlework and craft companies. I also traveled the country working trade and consumer shows.

Fast-forward again, this time a few decades. I’m still designing in the craft industry, but I’ve also caught the writing bug and penned several romances and romantic suspense novels. One day my agent called to tell me she’d spoken to an editor who’s looking for a crafting mystery series. Given my background, my agent thought I’d be the perfect person to write one.

 

Crafting mysteries? At the time I had no idea there was such a thing. So I set about doing a bit of research. I discovered that most crafting mysteries featured an amateur sleuth who either owned a specialty craft shop or was a crafter of one specific craft, such as candle-making, pottery, knitting, doll-making, etc. I decided to do something a bit different. Tapping into my own background as a crafts editor, I created a sleuth who works as the crafts editor at a women’s magazine. That way I could feature different crafts in each book in the series. Thus was born the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries.

I’m currently working on the eleventh full-length book in the series. There are also three connecting novellas. At this point Anastasia and I are pretty much joined at the hip. And it all began thanks to two conversations, one about needlecrafts and one about writing.

 

Stitch, Bake, Die!

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 10

 

With massive debt, a communist mother-in-law, a Shakespeare-quoting parrot, and a photojournalist boyfriend who may or may not be a spy, crafts editor Anastasia Pollack already juggles too much in her life. So she’s not thrilled when her magazine volunteers her to present workshops and judge a needlework contest at the inaugural conference of the New Jersey chapter of the Stitch and Bake Society, a national organization of retired professional women. At least her best friend and cooking editor Cloris McWerther has also been roped into similar duties for the culinary side of the 3-day event taking place on the grounds of the exclusive Beckwith Chateau Country Club.

 

The sweet little old ladies Anastasia is expecting to meet are definitely old, and some of them are little, but all are anything but sweet. She’s stepped into a vipers’ den that starts with bribery and ends with murder. When an ice storm forces Anastasia and Cloris to spend the night at the Chateau, Anastasia discovers evidence of insurance scams, medical fraud, an opioid ring, long-buried family secrets, and a bevy of suspects.

 

Can she piece together the various clues before she becomes the killer’s next target?

 

Crafting tips included.

 

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