Jul 22, 2021 | Mystery, Thriller |
Like every author, I also spent a fair amount of time reading. Outside of the pure mystery genre, I also read some thrillers (as long as they are not too violent), paranormal mystery, and some urban fantasy. In both types of books, I’ll read the description to see if it suits my likes. My imagination accepts wizards, but not shape-shifters, witches, or vampires. That’s just my personal taste, and there are many great books with those types of characters enjoyed by other readers.
When acquaintances find out that I’m a mystery writer, they will ask, Did I always want to be a writer? The answer is “no.” I hated creative writing classes in school as I never had anything creative to say. Now I struggle with too many story premises. I have the next story in my head for two of the three series I write at any given time. The third series is complete with four books. The Jill Quint series contains 12 books, and I generally know what the 13th book will be about. I released my new paranormal thriller, NOW YOU DON’T SEE ME, on Thursday, 7/15/2021, which is the first book in that new series.
My protagonist is Michelle Watson, a CIA case officer in her early fifties. After being critically injured on the job as a big-city cop in her mid-forties, she discovers a teleportation skill. I’d like to think of her as an older, wiser, kick-ass, 2021 version of the Bionic Woman. She’ll use her skill to get out of trouble and save the world in each series book.
When I decided I wanted to try my hand at writing a paranormal story, the first thing I had to decided was which paranormal skill I wanted my character to have. My
good friend and first-reader suggested teleportation as the special talent that my protagonist would have. Her reasoning was that she hated driving anywhere as it was a waste of time. She asked the question – what good could you do in the world if you could teleport?
I started by making her the police chief of the small town where she grew up and where other paranormal people live. My friend pointed out that it would be a waste of her special talent—how could she impact the world from her small town with her special skill? Good question. She suggested I evaluate making her a spy. Of course, that required creating a new backstory and investigating the CIA and what they do.
It’s been fun creating this new series, especially as I explore how she gets out of tight situations. She’s been with the CIA for five years, mostly working as a lone agent doing hostage rescues. Now for the first time, she’s paired with a partner for a problem so large that only someone with her skill can save the world in time!
Alec Peche is the Northern California author of seventeen novels in three series. Her website is www.AlecPeche.com. There is a free sample of the first two (unedited) chapters of NOW YOU DON’T SEE ME available on the website.
Cheers,
Alec
Jul 19, 2021 | Mystery, Thriller, Uncategorized |
The day after high school graduation, Vinnie Hansen fled the howling winds of South Dakota and headed for the California coast. There the subversive clutches of college dragged her into the insanity of writing, where the dark influences of Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller coaxed Vinnie to a life of crime. A two-time Claymore Award finalist, she’s the author of the Carol Sabala Mystery series (misterio press), the novel Lostart Street, and many short stories. Retired after 27 years as a high school English teacher, she remains sane(ish), notwithstanding the evidence of her tickling the ivories with local ukulele bands.
Do you write in more than one genre? Yes, my short stories range from literary to noir. They’ve appeared in diverse publications from Lake Region Review to Santa Cruz Noir. My most recent print publication, “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” is in Gabba Gabba Hey: An Anthology of Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Ramones
In full-length work, my Carol Sabala series falls most accurately in the Private Investigator tradition. Carol Sabala starts as an amateur sleuth, but her career arc in the seven-book and one-novella series takes her into official private investigation.
I’m currently working on two novels, One Gun and Crime Writer, in the literary suspense sub-genre of crime fiction.
Finally, I dabble in non-fiction with a lovely creative non-fiction piece published in Catamaran Literary Reader’s Winter 2021 issue and an article in the last issue of Mystery Readers Journal.
Who’s your favorite author? An impossible question to answer, George! Since I write all over the place, I read all over the place. Right now, I’m in love with literary suspense, and my favorite authors in that sub-genre are Jane Harper, Allen Eskens, and Lou Berney.
When I was working in PI fiction, my inspiration was Sue Grafton.
Some of my favorite books of all time lie where the literary and mystery genres intersect. Think William Kent Krueger’s Ordinary Grace or David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars.
But an author who is a favorite for other reasons is Dorothy Bryant. She comes from an English teaching background, as do I, and that background wends its way into works like Miss Giardino. Dorothy Bryant was feisty, the first woman to wear pants when teaching at Contra Costa College.
Her first book, Ella Price’s Journal, was traditionally published. Still, when her agent deemed her second book “very bad,” Bryant struck out on her own before self-publishing was common or easy. She established Ata Press and published this “very bad” book, The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You. The book was later picked up by Random House and stayed in print for 30 years. Who doesn’t love that story?
But the main thing I love about Bryant is how she explored everything from the diary format to stage plays to science fiction. She followed her love of writing wherever it led her. She did not feel confined by genre. More than any other writer, she’s my role model.
What kind of research do you do? I do whatever research a book or story demands. The fifth Carol Sabala novel, Death with Dessert, involves immigrants coming over the border in Arizona, so I went to Arizona and drove down to Sasabe. I wanted to see the terrain, feel the quality of the air, smell the desert. You can’t Google those sensory details.
Since I’m a crime fiction writer, I’ve toured our local police station, the county jail (twice), San Quentin prison (twice), the FBI Crime Lab in San Francisco, and a prison in Wisconsin. I tried to visit a detention facility in Mexico but was rather forcibly removed. I’ve done two police ride-alongs and attended the Writers Police Academy, where I made a tourniquet for a writhing dummy squirting blood and participated in Shoot; Don’t Shoot video scenarios used for police training.
My personal experience has led to some unintended research. My husband and I were both handcuffed and put in the back of a sheriff’s vehicle to bake for an hour
as the LEO’s sorted out a report of shots fired on our street. The photo shows what our street looked like that day. That’s our brown house!
We also came home while our house was being burglarized; my husband gave chase to the burglar, who pulled a gun and threatened to kill him. Luckily, he didn’t. Because of my husband’s pursuit, the cops were able to arrest the young man, and we ended up with front row seats to the criminal justice system—from arraignment through trial. The burglary and the question of what became of the gun served as the impetus for my next novel, One Gun, coming from Misterio press either late this year or early next year.
I’ve attended numerous panels and workshops on everything from search-and-rescue to autopsies. In a survival camp, I constructed an emergency shelter and tried to make a fire. I’ve been to a gun range, of course.
On a more cerebral level, I’ve read Adam Plantinga’s books 400 Things Cops Know and Police Craft and have reference books at my fingertips like Deadly Doses, when I need a little poison, or Police Procedure & Investigation by Lee Lofland when I need a better sense of how the whole bureaucracy operates.
Not all my research is so dark. I visited the Grateful Dead archives here in Santa Cruz to write my story “Dead Revival,” which was published August 15th at Yellow Mama. For an earlier story (“Room and Board” in Fishy Business, the Fifth Guppy Anthology) featuring the same duo of numbskulls, I toured our local Surf Museum.
And, of course, probably like every writer, I go down rabbit holes on the internet. I’ve spent whole afternoons looking at and reading about blue scorpions. For the story in Gabba Gabba Hey, I killed an hour watching videos of killdeers.
Vinnie Hansen, two-time Claymore Finalist 
The Carol Sabala Mystery Series
LOSTART STREET, a novel
Newsletter
BookBub
Jul 12, 2021 | Mystery, Thriller, Uncategorized |
Glenda Carroll writes the Trisha Carson mysteries that take place in the San Francisco Bay area, from Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants to the beautiful lakes in the East Bay to the tree-lined streets of Marin County.
Her mysteries are set in the world of open water swimming. The third book of the series Dead Code will be published by Indies United Publishing House. The launch date is October 27, 2021. Books one and two, Dead in the Water and Drop Dead Red, introduced Trisha Carson, a 40-something woman trying to find her way in the world, and her family to the mystery reading community.
When not writing, she tutors high school and college students for Canal Alliance, San Rafael, in English and occasionally History. These are first-generation teens who understand that education is the way out of poverty.
What brought you into writing? Good question. I never, ever thought I would write fiction. For almost twenty years, I was a
sportswriter for the Marin Independent Journal. I covered mostly water sports: sailing and sailboat racing, boating (in general), surfing, some swimming. I remember someone once asked me, “Do you have a novel in there?” I was miffed. “How can you write about something that isn’t true?” I huffed and puffed. But I found that not only could I use my imagination and find dead bodies in all types of strange locations. But I liked doing it!
What is your writing process? Several years back, I entered a NaNoWriMo 6-word contest about writing. “Write like a hurricane. Edit later,” was my prize-winning entry. That seems to be what I do. I blast through the first draft. After that, it’s torture. I write draft after draft. I often take out big chunks of copy and put them in a special deleted file. I’m not sure why I keep them. I have never used anything that I’ve buried in that file. For Dead Code, three people volunteered to be my Beta readers. It was the first time I was that organized to ask for help. They were great…excellent suggestions that made the manuscript better.
Have you ever had writer’s block? Oh yes. When I was writing the first book in the series Dead in the Water, I reached a point where I didn’t know what to say and what to type. At those times, I would go out and cut the grass. I had an old-fashioned push mower, and it was in the middle of summer. Maybe it was the dripping sweat that kickstarted my brain, but when I came back inside to my cool house, my mind was working again.
How do you come up with characters’ names? For the protagonist of the series, Trisha Carson, I knew her age and researched the popular girls’ names the year she was born. After that, I began to use the names of family members. In all the books, there is a character I called Inspector Carolina Burrell, San Francisco Police Department. That moniker contains my granddaughter’s name and the name of a former San Francisco Giants outfielder, Pat Burrell. I used my sons’ first names for ballplayers on the Giants. My grandson Caden’s name was used for a secret swimming spot, Caden’s Corner. If you’re related to me or even someone I admire, your name will be usurped at some point.
Do you have subplots? There is definitely a subplot in Dead Code. As I mentioned earlier, the first two books of the series are firmly set in the world of open water swimming, and the plots are water-oriented. Dead Code moves away from being totally involved with water into the world of hacking. (There are swimming scenes for those who can’t get enough of H2O.) Just as I finished the first draft, I had my identity stolen. My hacker found his way into my bank accounts, health care, phone, and email. I tore my hair out for about a week, trying to understand what was going on and how to stop it. I knew I had to add that to the manuscript. I rewrote the whole thing so Trisha could share my pain. She hated it as much as I did.
Do you outline, or are you a pantser? Honestly, I seem to start in the middle and work toward the beginning and the end. I usually don’t know ‘who did it’ until I write it. However, I tried to become more organized with book two. For Drop Dead Red, I carefully worked out an outline. Then I started writing. I didn’t make it through the first chapter before I strayed from the outline. I’m not sure why I can’t stick to an outline. I just can’t. I wish I could.
“(Trisha Carson is)…a smart, steadfast gumshoe who, in her second book, continues to flourish…Carroll’s writing bounces off the page.” Kirkus Reviews
What are you currently working on? As I mentioned, I am approaching the finish line with Dead Code. This is a different subject for me, involving hackers and ransomware. I only had a cursory knowledge of the computer crime world. I needed to read everything I could on the subject, and I even lurked on a few hacker bulletin boards. My sister’s sweetheart started his own computer security firm ages ago, and he was happy to answer all my questions, from the simplest to the most complex. He even made a few plot suggestions.
Advice to new writers?
First, keep reading—everything you can. But be critical (in a good way) of the text. How does the author use verbs? What are transitions like? What makes you say, “I wish I wrote that sentence, paragraph, chapter?” Does the ending work?
Second. Do your best to keep that inner voice that tells you. You don’t know what you’re doing at bay. Half the time, I never know where the story is going until I write it. However, I am beginning to have confidence that something, maybe even something worth reading, will come out of the process.
Third. Write. Even when you don’t want to.
Looking to the future, what is in store for you? As you might guess, I write about open water swimming, because I swim in open water (as well as a pool). I swim in rivers, lakes, the ocean, and over the past year in the chilly San Francisco Bay. I’ve raced in more than 150 open water events in Northern California and Hawaii, and Perth, Australia. Currently, I am training for an Alcatraz swim in early September. I was swimming along the other day in the choppy Bay, putting in the distance, and the idea came to me for the next book. A swimmer is making their way across the Bay, and she is being escorted by a pilot boat. The swimmer gets a bit off course, and when she turns to look back at the boat, something is strange. She swims over to it, and the pilot (the captain or driver of the boat) has disappeared. The swimmer and the empty boat are in the middle of the Bay, alone. Sound interesting?
How can our readers contact you?
Ggcarroll43@gmail.com
Webpage: glendacarroll.com
FB: Author page: https://www.facebook.com/Carrollandfriends
Personal FB page: https://www.facebook.com/glenda.carroll
Twitter: @ggcarroll
Instagram: Glenda.carroll
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Ms.-Glenda-Carroll/e/B00CIJ7HJ8/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
I
Jun 28, 2021 | Thriller, Uncategorized |
Thank you so much for having me on your blog!
The pandemic has been a tumultuous time for so many of us writery folks. Still, I’ve been super busy and full of ideas. My most recent release is a gothic romance story called “The House Must Fall,” which is a queer homage to Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher. It’s part of the Haunts and Hellions Gothic Romance Anthology, and you can order a special edition with extra goodies from HorrorAddicts.net.
I also re-released my Rock ‘N’ Romance series in May. The Rock Season, Road Trip, and You Fell First are all music-inspired stories full of hope, love, and rock ‘n’ roll featuring folks from the San Francisco Bay Area on their journeys toward a happily ever after. Here’s a quick excerpt from You Fell First. The scene is told from Deputy Calvin Graham’s perspective as he’s directing traffic during a storm where trees are threatening to block the road. Those of you from the Bay Area will recognize this as Crow Canyon Road.
Cars flew by, ignoring signs to slow down, and my field training officer, Sergeant Diaz, warned me this could be a seriously hazardous situation. Diaz and I had thrown down some flares to hopefully grab the attention of drivers multitasking in their SUVs.
I couldn’t help but be distracted myself. Way up high on the hillside, a lone tree trimmer was strung up in the tree, trying to cut back some limbs that had fractured but hadn’t dropped. The guy’d been up there for at least two hours and the crew kept a close eye on his progress. He’d come down a few minutes prior and was on his way up the second tree, and for the life of me, I couldn’t help but watch the graceful way he managed to climb the ropes like some sort of acrobat in Cirque du Soleil. He was obviously experienced. I turned back to watch the traffic but I kept glancing back, captivated by his movements.
The wind picked up and howled through the canyon, causing his ropes to sway. Someone in his crew shouted at him in Spanish and he flipped them off. I chuckled to myself at their camaraderie before I turned back around. In time to see my life flash before my eyes.
Diaz shouted as the SUV heading right for us skidded at a forty-five-degree angle. The driver overcorrected and clipped our patrol car, causing the front end to slam into me and knock me backward. The SUV crashed into the trees, one of which the trimmer was suspended from.
Everyone froze as that tree groaned and lurched sideways, falling into the tree next to it. The trimmer dangled between the two, frantically trying to grab on to one or the other. He swung to the other tree and wrapped his arms and legs around the trunk.
I was still trying to catch my breath from where the fall had knocked the wind out of me. Diaz ran to my side. “Sonofabitch, Graham! You alright dude? You went down hella hard.”
I nodded as I coughed and gestured for him to help me up.”Paramedics are on their way. You need to get checked out.”
A cracking noise came from the other tree the car had smashed against and it shifted, jolting the car. I heard another crack and then shouts from the public works crew.
I reached into the SUV and came out with both kids. I managed to get several steps away as the tree groaned once more and fell forward onto the car.
The tree trimmer screamed as the rope, which was caught in the second tree, pulled his legs away from the tree he was holding on to.
That was a female scream. That’s a woman up there!
I watched in horror as the woman was pulled towards the fallen tree. She held on to the other tree desperately but she was losing the battle.
One of the other workers was getting harnessed up so he could climb the other tree and grab ahold of the hanging woman. The crew was trying to get around the giant tree but I spotted a more direct route. I pulled out my Leatherman and climbed up the back of the SUV so I could get to where the rope was attached.
Time stopped for a moment as I looked up into the trees. She stared down at me and then she nodded.
“Sí officer, corta la cuerda!” An older man on her crew who’d been trying to get to the rope gestured for me to cut it, but I worried the sudden change in tension would cause her to let go. My heart was in freefall as I prayed she wouldn’t be.
Do you write in more than one genre? I do! I love challenging myself. I started with paranormal and contemporary romance, and now I’ve branched out into horror and supernatural suspense.
Where do you write? What, if any, distractions do you allow? Wherever I can, whenever I can. I have all the distractions, especially over this past year. My current workspace is a standing desk in the living room. Between my two cats and psycho black lab, my two teens, and my husband, who is also working from home, it’s quite chaotic in our 1000sqft house.
What are you currently working on? I’m currently working on a co-author project—remember what I said about challenging myself? It’s a gay romance set in the custom car world featuring a Puerto Rican family shop in Florida. It’s been so fun to have someone be just as excited about the story you’re working on as you are. We’re using Google Docs to go back and forth and writing a chapter at a time. I love it. My partner Sera Taíno and I are a good match.
Do you base any of your characters on real people? Well yeah. Anyone I know is fair game. Kidding. Maybe.
Looking to the future, what’s in store for you? A sabbatical from teaching after 27 years. I’ll be full-time writing as I work on my health and my home. As far as writing is concerned, I have a queer anthology coming out June 8th called Love Is All Vol 4 with some fantastic authors, which will raise funds for charity. Later this year, I have two full-lengths—a contemporary romance set in Spain and a supernatural suspense follow-up to last year’s Healer. I’ve got lots to do to get those ready for launch!
Do you have any advice for new writers? Find your people! Whether it’s a formal group or a site like NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) that supports folks at all levels of their journey. Find a place where you feel accepted, where there are folks at different places in their journey, and where you feel supported. If all else fails, hit me up. I love to chat with folks, and brainstorming might be one of my superpowers… Maybe. If they actually exist.
How do our readers contact you?
Folks can find me at www.rlmerrillauthor.com, and I’m usually lurking @rlmerrillauthor on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. I love connecting with readers and other writers, so don’t hesitate to reach out! I also write horror-inspired music reviews for HorrorAddicts.net, and I hope to start attending shows again soon now that I’m vaccinated. Maybe I’ll see you at the rock show! Thanks to George for having me on the blog today, and Stay Tuned for more Rock ‘n’ Romance…
Jun 24, 2021 | Thriller |
Debra Bokur has been at the writing game for more than 40 years but prefers to avoid saying exactly how many.
She’s worked as an editor and staff writer at
newspapers and national magazines and as a full-time journalist (the real, old-fashioned kind), literary journal editor, screenwriter, and poet. She’s also done quite a bit of illustration work and spent several decades training horses and riders for competition in the sports of dressage and three-day eventing.
Debra is the recipient of multiple national writing awards, including a Lowell Thomas Award for travel journalism, and remains a columnist and feature writer at Global Traveler Magazine. She’s also senior researcher and writer for the Association of Safe International Road Travel. Both her jobs regularly take her to far-flung destinations in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. She doesn’t like flying but loves trains, prefers cold weather to hot; and strongly dislikes coffee, but drinks a truly impressive amount of tea on a daily basis.
Debra is the author of the Dark Paradise Mystery series from Kensington Books, including The Fire Thief (2020), The Bone Field (2021), and The Lava Witch (scheduled for release in 2022). When not traveling or writing, Debra spends her time hiking near her home high in the Rocky Mountains and renovating a haunted 1860s Victorian inn on the coast of Maine with her husband.
Do you write in more than one genre? I do. Besides crime/mystery fiction, I write magical realism and poetry. A lot of that has been published, and I’m working on a new mystery series that features elements of magical realism. Something I love to do, especially when working on a book, is to step away to write a short story, flash fiction piece, or poem. It helps me refocus. A topic I return to frequently is the re-telling of classic fairytales from a fresh or unusual angle.
You mentioned you prefer cold weather to hot, but your Dark Paradise Mystery series is set in Hawai’i. Why is that? I am definitely a cold weather person and am never happier than when the landscape is covered by deep snow or enveloped in cold winter mist. But Hawai’i is a definite exception—though my first trip there 25 years ago was under duress. I was the managing editor at a culinary magazine, and our food editor was suddenly unable to attend a food festival in Hawai’i that we’d agreed to cover. Our advertising team had already sold ad space around the expected story, and as anyone in magazine publishing knows, once ads have been sold, there’s absolutely going to be supporting editorial. I was the only staff member free to go. Plus, my husband had been invited to accompany me, and once he knew about it, there was no ducking out. So I went, grumbling all the way about sunburn, bugs, and the inferiority of palm trees to aspens. When we arrived, I realized I’d been a colossal idiot. It was pretty much love at first sight and is still the only tropical place I enjoy traveling to.
Over the years, I’ve been back many times, usually on assignment. During those excursions—and because of the fact that the magazines I’ve worked for have almost always focused on wellness, spirituality, herbal medicines, and similar topics—I’ve been deeply fortunate to have met and formed lasting relationships with elders, healers, and wisdom keepers from the Hawaiian culture. My book series grew out of my fascination with how such a remarkably beautiful landscape can harbor so much darkness.
Where do you write? What, if any distractions, do you allow? We live in a heavily forested corner of the Rocky Mountains at 8,400 feet, where I’ve created a mountain garden that’s home to numerous birds, foxes, rabbits, raccoons, and other wildlife. My writing room looks out on that space and is filled with meaningful objects that inspire me—books, letters, postcards, treasures, and talismans. While that’s the place I’m most productive and feel I do my best work, I’ve trained myself to write just about anywhere, which is necessary because of work travel. On planes, I’m too stressed to write (even though my husband is an experienced pilot who’s been trying for decades to explain bumpy air to me), but I’m particularly prolific on trains, buses, and in airports. As for distractions: cat, dog, and wildlife distractions are all completely acceptable, as are calls from my son (who’s been living in Iceland for a long time) and knocks on the door from my husband inviting me for a walk or announcing that a cake fell into his shopping cart at the store and I should stop working long enough to have a slice.
What brought you to writing? As the above references to animals and wildlife are no doubt clues, I was that intensely shy loner kid who always felt more comfortable hanging out with my pets and a good book than socializing with other humans. I was the eldest of five children, and our home was always filled with drama. I found that escaping into a story was a good way to cope. My mother used to read to us when we were young, and it was usually a mystery by Dashiell Hammett or Agatha Christie. As I got older, I discovered other authors and began writing my own stories. While I was spectacularly useless at math and science, I always excelled at writing and creative pursuits. I was lucky to be encouraged in that direction—and to have serious mentors later in life who became dear friends, including the late author Jack D. Hunter (The Blue Max and many other books), poet Ruth Moon Kempher, and literary journal publisher Colette Trent.
What kind of research do you do? Tons. Because my books deal with ancient Hawaiian legends and mythology, I spend lots of time reading works by anthropologists and other experts. One challenge is that much of Hawaiian history is oral, and the collected stories vary to a huge degree depending upon how the stories were handed down through individual families. After I have a working draft, I show it to one or more Native Hawaiian friends who let me know if I’m off track or have missed a vital point.
What is the best book you’ve ever read? Tough—but I’ll say Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman, which is stunningly imaginative and lyrical; and—not to be a cliché—The Lord of the Rings. I’ve re-read this trilogy at least two dozen times over the years, and it still acts as a portal, startles me with the beauty of the writing and imagery, and inspires me to be a better storyteller.
Please share your publication and new book information. The Bone Field (book #2 in my Dark Paradise Mystery series) is now available at all the usual outlets, as is the first book, The Fire Thief.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bone-Field-Dark-Paradise-Mystery-ebook/dp/B08GYF75SM
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-bone-field-debra-bokur/1137556797
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/the-bone-field-a-dark-paradise-mystery-book-2-by-debra-bokur
IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781496727756
Links to my articles on CrimeReads:
https://crimereads.com/gothic-tea-a-dark-history-of-tea-in-fiction-and-real-life/
https://crimereads.com/while-the-world-is-on-lockdown-crime-fiction-is-the-perfect-way-to-travel/
Contact info:
Website: https://www.debrabokur.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debrabokur
Twitter: https://twitter.com/spatravelpro?lang=en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debrabokur/?hl=en
Jun 14, 2021 | Thriller, Young Adult |
Laura Jensen Walker knew she wanted to be a writer ever since she read 103 books in Miss Vopelensky’s first-grade class.
A lifelong lover of mysteries, I never dreamed I’d someday be writing them!
Eager to see the world, I joined the Air Force at 19 and headed off into that wild blue yonder flying a typewriter across Europe. Although my clerk-typist job was boring, traveling was bliss. By the time I was 23, I had visited 15 countries and fallen in love with tea and the land of my heart—England. Later, I majored in journalism, but it took cancer at age 35 to push me to follow my writing dreams of becoming an author. My first book, Dated Jekyll, Married Hyde (non-fiction humor ala Erma Bombeck), came out in 1997. Since then, I’ve written ten humorous non-fiction books and ten novels (chick lit and cozies.)
Murder Most Sweet (Crooked Lane), featuring baker, breast-cancer survivor, and writer Teddie St. John, is my first cozy, released last fall during the
pandemic. I wanted to see someone like me in a mystery—a woman who chose to “go flat” after having two mastectomies and is now living her best life. Breasts don’t make a woman. An early editor who read and loved my manuscript, said diversity is important in crime fiction, but diversity isn’t only about color. To my delight and gratitude Murder Most Sweet is nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Such a lovely surprise and honor.
Deadly Delights, the sequel to Murder Most Sweet, is my third cozy and twentieth book. (I never dreamed I’d have 20 books under my belt, and still more to come.)
August in Lake Potawatomi, Wisconsin, always means one thing: the annual baking contest. Picture The Great British Baking Show, writ Midwestern. Naturally, bon vivant baker-turned-mystery writer Teddie St. John has a pie in the ring. The white baking tent boasts an array of folding tables housing each entrant’s daily baked good. And at one of those tables sits the corpse of the lecherous head judge, his face half-buried in a delectable coconut cream pie with Teddie’s distinctive embossed rolling pin by his side…covered with blood. With the help of her friends, Teddie must concoct a recipe to clear her name–if the real killer doesn’t ice her first.
I’m thrilled by the great advance reviews Deadly Delights has received.
“Lively characters complement the twisty plot.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Deadly Delights moves along at warp speed… [Walker’s] writing and story development is top notch.”
—New York Journal of Books
The ironic thing about the ‘warp speed’ comment is that I wrote Deadly Delights in two-and-a-half months. For many, March and April 2020 were a scary, anxious time as we tried to understand and cope with this crazy pandemic, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in more than a century. Added to the overall anxiety, I have comorbidities that put me in a higher risk group. Scary. I couldn’t focus on anything, including writing and reading. I tried to escape in a good book—some I’d been eagerly anticipating for months—but couldn’t concentrate. Reading has been a joy and great escape my whole life. Except this time. Such a weird feeling—one that I’m happy to say has passed. I also didn’t write a single word on my third cozy during those first two months of the pandemic. The cozy that was due to my editor July 1. Luckily, I managed to get a two-week extension, then wrote like the wind to make that July 15 deadline. My journalism background of writing tight and fast saved me.
My second cozy, Hope, Faith, & a Corpse, a clerical mystery featuring the first Episcopal woman priest in Faith Chapel’s 160-year history, was released in January.
Do you write in more than one genre? I’ve written non-fiction and chick-lit in the past and plan to write more non-fiction and also historical fiction.
What are you currently working on? I’m writing a “Pandemic Postscript” to the memoir I wrote a few years ago that my agent loved but couldn’t sell due to my lack of platform. In non-fiction, it’s essential to have a “platform” of some kind, whether it’s being on the speaking circuit and regularly speaking to large groups around the country who will then buy your book at the back of the room, having a YouTube channel with a zillion subscribers, or having a large/decent social media following.
At the time—prior to signing my cozy contract—I’d been out of the writing/publishing world for more than a decade and no longer had a reader following. I’d stopped public speaking, wasn’t on Twitter, and only had a couple hundred Facebook friends. Multiple editors at several publishing houses told my agent how much they loved the writing in my memoir, but regretfully had to turn it down since I had no platform. Hopefully (fingers crossed) now that I have readers again, a monthly newsletter with a decent number of subscribers, a larger FB presence, and a (small) Twitter and Instagram following, my memoir, the book of my soul, will finally sell.
I’m also started working on my first historical fiction—the book of my heart, set in WWII England—but I’m not ready to say anything more about it yet.
We hear of strong-willed characters. Do yours behave, or do they run the show? Oh, they run the show. Before I began writing fiction when I’d ask a novelist about how their work-in-progress was going, and they’d respond with something like, “I’m waiting for my character to reveal what’s next,” I’d inwardly scoff and think, “You’re the writer; you’re in charge!” Then I started writing my first novel. Ha! In fact, when I started writing my first cozy (now shelved), one of the minor characters, an Episcopal woman priest, let me know she was a major character deserving of her own book. Thus, Hope, Faith, & a Corpse was born.
Do you outline, or are you a pantser? Outline is a dirty word in my house. I’m a total pantser. Mostly. Before I begin my WIP, I usually need to know what the ending is. That way, I have a starting point and an end point, and I fill in the middle. However, in both of my Bookish Baker mysteries, the endings I’d initially envisioned (including the murderer in one—I won’t say which one) changed as the story unfolded.
Looking to the future, what’s in store for you? Hopefully, more cozies in both my series, the Bookish Baker Mysteries and Faith Chapel Mysteries and contracts for the book of my soul (my memoir) and the book of my heart (the historical fiction I’ve been yearning to write for more than three decades.)
How do our readers contact you?
Please contact me through my website, www.laurajensenwalker.com (if you sign up for my newsletter, you get a free gift!)
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurajensenwalker/
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Readers can also connect with me on Twitter @LauraJensenWal1
I just teleported to this blog and I’m glad I did. Very interesting to find someone with the same skill. Would it be possible to teleport me a copy of your book.
I would love to meet your protagonist Michelle Watson…sounds like someone I could be friends with. When teleportation becomes available to the public, I’ll be first in line. Great interview.
I’m not a paranormal fan, but I love your character’s ability to transport so I will have to look at your book.
I love the premise of your new series and can’t wait to read!
Thanks Debra. I hope you’ll enjoy the story!
Interesting idea. Sounds like a great book.
Your book sounds very unique. I don’t care for vampires either. Good luck.
The thought that someone who eats blood can be a positive character in a book, stretches my imagination too far. Sure the guys are always described as hunks, but I can’t get past my blood as food aversion, LOL. The great thing about fiction is there is something for everyone out there, soo I can take a pass on vampire stories and still have a large TBR pile.
Ooo, what an amazing premise! I love the idea of teleportation as a special talent, it’d definitely take a lot of the grunt out of police work. 🙂
My friend who suggested that talent said she hated driving places – she just wanted to be there. Of course, once you think of a paranormal talent you have to come up with the framework under which the talent functions. My character hasn’t tried to teleport aboard the Internation Space Station for some well-thought-out reasons that I describe in the book. It’s fun making logical sense of a paranormal talent.
Great blogpost, George, and I can’t wait to read Alec’s latest book!
I am really enjoying this opportunity to get to know the members of our drop-in writing group. Congrats on the start of a new series, Alec!
Thanks Vinnie! George’s blog has been a great way to learn about our fellow SinC NorCal members.