An Interview with Author Tracy Donley by E. B. Davis

“I don’t really believe we ever get lost,” said Mrs. Potter matter-of-factly. “You’re where you’re meant to be, my dear. But where is it you think you’re going?”

Tracy Donley, Murder in the Meadow, Kindle Loc. Page10

 

Sometimes digging up the past…
Can be murder.

Back home after a successful European lecture tour, historian Rosemary Grey is looking forward to relaxing and enjoying two blissful weeks with her best friend, Jack, and his new husband Charlie. Their cozy New England farmhouse in Paperwick, the quaint village they call home is an added bonus, and Rosemary can’t wait for the annual Paperwick Founders Day Festival—a beloved local event.

One of the highlights of this year’s festival will be a spooky new tradition – the first ever village cemetery crawl, led by Jack and Rosemary. The cheeky duo will “bring a few of the village founders’ spirits back to life,” which thrills Rosemary to no end. There’s nothing the dedicated historian loves more than digging into local lore to make colorful histories come alive.
The village’s most dramatic historical character—a woman who’d been accused of witchcraft in 1668 and who is still buried in the meadow that adjoins the cemetery—will be highlighted in the grand finale. Rosemary digs deeply into Paperwick’s past and the more that she discovers about the so-called witch, the more she is drawn into investigating a 350-year-old mystery.
When a murder actually takes place in the present time, Rosie and her friends are astonished to find that clues in the past point to answers in the present. Autumn leaves are falling, there's a hint of romance in the air, and there's a caramel apple pie in the oven (recipe included!), so curl up with a hot cup of tea and enjoy a cozy visit to mysterious New England!

Amazon.com

 

Murder in the Meadow is the first of three books published so far in this series. As soon as I started reading, I felt that main character, Rosemary, a lecturing historian, was a kindred spirit. She’s in transition, visiting her best friend from college, Jack, a college professor in literature, who lives in a small Connecticut town with his husband, Charlie. But she’s tired of being on the lecture tour. Her Manhattan apartment seems distant and cold after being away for nearly a year, which is the reason she missed Jack and Charlie’s wedding.

 

This is a mystery that has the best elements of cozy. Great friendships, unique architecture, rich food, unique and bold secondary characters, a historical murder corresponding to the current mystery, and a love interest for Rosemary!

 

All the books I found and read on Kindle Unlimited. I enjoyed them immensely. Please welcome Tracy Donley to WWK.                                                       E.  B. Davis

Thank you so much for having me! I’m honored to be here!

 

Are legends stories that have been verbally passed down from generation to generation? Are legends true?

Yes, that is a great definition of what a legend is in the context of my books. They can become a wonderful mixture of truth and layers upon layers of embellishment and interpretation as they pass through generations. I remember back in high school English class, I got to choose a topic for the big research paper assignment, and I chose the legendary King Arthur. Even as a kid, I loved finding the seeds of truth and history in that legend, and then learning about how the story had evolved as it passed from one storyteller to the next. So to answer the question, I do think there is often at least a little seed of truth at the beginning of a legend—and that it grows up and branches out through time, with each person who touches it leaving their own mark on it.

 

Rosemary seems to have a teaching position at a New York City university. How did she end up on the English/European lecture tour? Are they interested in 17^th century American history, Rosemary’s specialty?

Rosemary is a historian and teacher at NYU at the beginning of book one. She specializes in early American history—and specifically the 17^th century and the New England witch trials. She has done extensive research and writing about this time period, and as a result, is often invited to do guest lectures at other universities. As book one opens, Rosemary has come off a semester-long sabbatical during which she did a string of guest lectures at various European universities. (And traveling the world has always been one of Rosemary’s dreams, so she is thrilled by the opportunity!) She is a dynamic speaker and has a reputation for giving excellent lectures, so she is able to captivate her European academic audiences and finds that they are fascinated with her subject matter. Of course, by the 17^th century, witch hysteria was old hat in Europe. I imagine many of the members of Rosemary’s audiences find it fascinating to compare the American experience to that of Europe.

 

Jack’s small yellow electric car is named Holly Golightly. There have been many Holly Golightlys, much to my surprise. Which one does the car’s name come from and why?

Much to my surprise, too! Jack and Rosemary love watching movies together, and after seeing Breakfast at Tiffany’s in college, they named Jack’s car, inspired by Audrey Hepburn’s character. Since it’s an early-model electric car, it doesn’t make a lot of noise—thus the name.

Jack’s spouse, Charlie, can predict the weather. Is he trained or does he have a sixth sense for it?

Charlie has always had a fascination with the weather. My dad was the same way, and I’m a little nerdy about knowing the forecast myself. Hahaha! Charlie is strictly an armchair meteorologist who takes delight in checking the radar, listening to his NOAA weather radio, reading up on the latest weather gadgets, and watching the news. I like to think he’s developed an ability to predict the weather because he’s always watching and studying weather patterns.

 

If Charlie were Rosemary’s spirit animal, what would he be?

Huh. If Charlie were Rosemary’s spirit animal . . . To Rosemary—and to Jack as well—Charlie is an anchoring, steadying force. He’s a voice of reason. So I think he’d be a barred owl. A wise, calm companion who warns you when bad weather is on the way.

 

Does everyone in Paperwick, the small Connecticut town where Jack and Charlie live, have a “knack” for something?

Most of the citizens of Paperwick like to think they have a knack for something—but especially Mrs. Potter and Ingrid!

 

Mayor Wright welcomes Rosemary home. Does he know something she doesn’t?

Mayor Wright loves Paperwick so much that he thinks everyone should be at home there, and that if they stay a while, they’ll never want to leave!

 

I didn’t know there were witch trials in Connecticut, which occurred before those in Salem, MA, from 1647—1697. Had you known about the witch trials or did you get lucky while researching?

As soon as I decided to write this book, I started researching the American witch trials. I’d read a little bit about the trials in Connecticut in the past, but had to go back and do a ton of research. They are the reason I set the series in Connecticut instead of Massachusetts in the first place—there was this sort of forgotten piece of history there that I found fascinating.

 

I really love the idea—and employed it in every book in this series—of having some lesser-known or curious moment in American history at the center of the plot. The first book, of course, hits on the Connecticut witch trials as opposed to the more famous Massachusetts ones. The second book, which has a Viking theme, was inspired years ago when I read about the Kensington Runestone, which was found in Minnesota of all places! Its origins have been debated for years. The third book was inspired by a place near Pomfret that’s fabled to be one of the most haunted places in Connecticut, known as the Lost Village or the Village of Ghostly Voices, which was an 18^th century settlement that was abandoned. I’ll leave the fourth for a surprise! I love researching things like this and then weaving them into the stories.

 

How were the Connecticut witch trials different? Did the governor help the situation? Why didn’t Connecticut set a precedence for Massachusetts?

It’s interesting. The Connecticut trials did, in a way, set precedent—but not in a good way. One of my sources says, “The Connecticut residents who died as witches, however, set both a legal and moral precedent that led, in part, to the more famous Salem Witch Trials of 1692-93.” So the fact that it had happened in New England before—the panic, the hysteria, the accusations, trials, and punishments . . . those set a precedent for such occurrences to happen again.

 

Witchcraft had been a crime for some time. Legal precedent in the colonies was based upon England’s Witchcraft Act of 1604. The first person actually convicted of witchcraft in the American colonies was in Connecticut—and the so-called Hartford Trials happened almost thirty years before the trials in Salem. The governor, John Winthrop Jr. (He was the son of John Winthrop the elder, who had been the founding governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony), most definitely helped the situation by making the decision to require that there be multiple witnesses of an act of witchcraft in order to convict someone, whereas before, the court could convict based on the testimony of a single person.

 

The Salem trials are better known in part because there were more of them and they were better publicized. At least at the beginning of those trials, spectral evidence was actually admissible in court, which meant that if you had a bad dream about someone, you could literally use that as evidence that they were a witch! In 1693, the Superior Court of Judicature was created and it wouldn’t take spectral evidence into consideration—and surprise, surprise, the trials wound down and mostly ended in pardon or acquittal.

Unfortunately, like in your story, the Massachusetts’s witch trials also had the element of land greed. Were witch trials a way to take land away from women?

Sometimes yes, most definitely. During that time, if a woman was married but didn’t produce any male offspring, and the woman outlived her husband, she could inherit his land. If that woman was then accused of witchcraft, the property would go to the state. So as you can imagine, many of the accused were land owners.

 

Were many of the women accused of witchcraft actually progressive healers, acting as midwives and doctoring in communities lacking a doctor? Wouldn’t the communities rally around them in their defense?

You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I can’t attest to the numbers, but I specifically read about female healers and midwives being accused of witchcraft in Europe. Apparently these women sometimes used herbs and the like to try to help alleviate a woman’s suffering during childbirth—but women were supposed to suffer during childbirth because pain during childbirth was Eve’s punishment for leading Adam astray back in the Garden of Eden. Wow. Also, midwives were sometimes thought to kill or steal babies, just like witches, or to replace newborns with changelings. I imagine in Hortence and Mercy’s time, while they as healers and midwives were loved and appreciated by many, they also mystified others. Hortence in particular was a beautiful, bold, independent, progressive woman. I can’t imagine a woman like her would have an easy time of it back then—both from the standpoints of the other women and of the men in the village. She and Mercy definitely had their allies, but their enemies took control in the end.

 

Although I understand Rosemary’s characterizing the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp as evil, surely as the years went by her terror of cats would have lessened. Why hasn’t it? It seems strange that a meadow cat was attracted to her. Is there a reason for that?

Rosemary’s cat phobia has lingered into adulthood. I wanted that bit of irony, that a person fascinated with early American witch trials would be afraid of cats, which were sometimes thought to be witches’ familiars, added to the irony that the field cat attaches herself to Rosemary in spite of this fear. Once Smudge (the cat) manages to break down that barrier, though, Rosemary won’t be afraid of cats anymore. It’s supposed to, on some level, indicate that the character is evolving.

 

In 2006, Connecticut actually pardoned those accused of witchcraft all those years ago. Why wasn’t Hortense’s family, the descendants of the accused witch, satisfied with that pardon?

That’s right—and about time! Hortence wasn’t technically pardoned because her accusation was never formalized. She died before her trial, and her story sort of got lost to history—until Rosemary and Jack decide to bring it to light. Hortence’s descendant, Ingrid Clark, wants to see Hortence vindicated and celebrated for the hero that she truly was.

 

Rosemary says that whenever she visits a historical site she becomes surprised and astounded by it. Why does anthropologist Seth “get it?”

Seth feels exactly the same way. Actually, this is how I feel when I visit historical sites. I remember a family vacation as a teenager when we went to New England and walked along the Freedom Trail in Boston. I remember looking up at the Old North Church and feeling all of a sudden, These things I’ve been reading about in school truly happened here. It was one of those moments you never forget. History became real for me that day. It was like an awakening. One of many. I imagine someone in the field of anthropology, like Seth, would feel that all the time.

 

How does Mrs. Potter, a mother three teenagers and who runs multiple businesses, keep current with all the goings on in Paperwick? We don’t see much of Mr. Potter. Is he too busy?

Have you ever known a Mrs. Potter-type person? I have! She’s definitely got her finger on the pulse of the town and no one quite understands how she can do it all and still be a bundle of energy! Maybe she eats a lot of apples from the orchard. Hahaha! Mr. Potter, a.k.a. “Big Bill,” comes out of the woodwork more in subsequent books—especially in book two. He’s Mrs. P’s rock and a devoted husband and dad. Like his wife, he stays busy, mostly on the farm.

 

How many books in this series have you planned so far?

I was contracted for four—all of which I have turned in. But I recently got an idea for book five, so am hoping my publisher will consider an extension! I stay pretty busy with other writing projects—including my ghostwriting work—so I’ll have to find the time to work on that one!

 

What is the mystery for Rosemary and her gang in the next book, Murder Set in Stone?

That one is a lot of fun! It takes place at Christmastime, and the Potter family is purchasing a piece of land that adjoins their farm so that they can create a Winter Wonderland Walk through the woods. When a dead body turns up there—a stranger to the town—it’s anyone’s guess who the killer is. And even more puzzling is the fact that the body is found right next to the fabled Skeggstone—a legendary Viking runestone that had been discovered and then gone missing years before. This book has a fun Viking theme, and takes place during the town’s annual Nysnöfest. (Nysnö, in Swedish, means the first snow of the season that falls and sticks to the ground.) I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!