Pat Deuson, Superior Longing Author

Echelon Press released Pat Deuson’s first novel, Superior Longing, in September. Although this first-in-series novel doesn’t feature the culinary arts, her main character, Neva Moore, is a CIA graduate, which makes me suspect that future novels will feature this aspect of the main character and will attract readers interested in epicure. In Superior Longing, Neva travels to Lake Superior to solve her first mystery with a nicely conceived hook. Please welcome Pat to WWK. E. B. Davis

Thank you, Elaine, for the invitation. Writers Who Kill is a great blog and I’m thrilled to be here!

 How long have you written?

 I started writing short stories in college, won a [quite small] prize or two and then gave it up, with no thought at all. Just stopped. Years later, after marriage, kids, a lot of moving, I was in California on R&R and I had an idea. It was too big for one book, little did I know since it was my first, so I plowed ahead anyway. It turned out to be The Ten Percent Solution, the first of the Cooks Inn series, which like many first books, is still in the metaphorical filing cabinet. The second is Superior Longing, now published by Echelon Press. I’m currently writing the third, Collective Instinct. A fourth, Eye of the Beholder is well under way. I even have an idea about a fifth. Seems crazy, even to me!

Do you belong to a critique group?

No. Wish I did but there are none about.

How many queries did you send out, and do you have an agent?

I don’t have an agent. I probably queried dozens and dozens [and dozens] of them and was universally rejected. When I got serious about writing, about 3 years ago, I decided to go the small press route since large presses are generally closed to un-agented authors. I sent a handful of queries to small presses and got two offers.

How did the deal with Echelon come about?

A query—which I was told was a good one and so asked to send the whole manuscript. But it really began with Amazon. I submitted Superior Longing to their novel contest and made it through a few cuts before being cut. It was fun, a little nerve wracking, but left me wondering what would happen if I just wrote the best book I could possibly write. So went back to work and eventually wrote Superior Longing as it is today. Writing the best book I can is my guiding principal. And a merciless one.

The premise for your plot is interesting. Could you give our readers your hook?

Superior Longing is set during a frigid spring on the beautiful and harsh southern shores of Lake Superior. When series protagonist Neva Moore's uncle drowns and the details of his death twist and turn, her pursuit of the truth weaves through small town politics, smuggling, and superstition, to end where it all began, back in the family and another death in an icy lake.

The book opens with a front row seat to this mysterious death, a death with tragic consequences for Neva. What is the reader really seeing? Only one way to find out.

Did you base your main character, Neva, on anyone?

No. I love to create characters [sometimes I have to stop myself] and find the story people I create more up to the task of solving crime than my neighbors or next of kin.

Neva is a CIA graduate. Do you have culinary training and will you feature cooking and recipes in future books?

Who could resist having a protagonist from the CIA – the Culinary Institute of America, which has its own FBI – Food and Beverage Institute?  But no official training for me, although I’ve cooked all my life. I did teach cooking when we lived in Burkina Faso.  I have a blog: The Cook Inn Mysteries Blog http://cooksinn.blogspot.com/ where either Neva or I talk food, but so far little has shown up in any of the books.  I’d like to make food part of the crime or its solution in one book.

There are two settings in the book? Did you research both or have you lived in both areas?

I think even if you live where a book is set some research is inevitable and often fun. I live in California and have lived in Minnesota, which touches Superior at Duluth, and in Indiana, which isn’t far from Michigan, and the UP, which is nearly engulfed by the waters of the Great Lakes, one of the world’s wonders. The series alternates between a book in California and someplace else. Superior Longing is set on Lake Superior, Collective Instinct is a home book, Eye of the Beholder is set in Saratoga Springs, NY. The first book in this series The Ten Percent Solution, is set at Cooks Inn, the home world of the series.

I read that you’ve spent time in Africa and have traveled extensively. Was pleasure or work involved?

Work. Not mine, my husbands. Two to three year stints in 5 countries.  Africa is a very intriguing place, often breath-taking, and just as often heart-breaking.

What’s next in your writing career?

There are things I love as much as cooking and writing. Gardening is one. In the back of my mind, I have thoughts of a series about gardening where my degrees in agronomy and horticulture would be useful for once, besides in my own backyard.

Pat can be found at:  http://cooksinn.blogspot.com/   Buy the Kindle addition of Superior Longing at: Amazon.