Inspiration – Everything and the Bathroom Sink by Molly MacRae

I’m at the beginning of a new adventure—writing a new mystery series for Kensington Publishing. The first book comes out in July of 2024. That seems ages away, but Kensington’s art department is already working on the cover and that makes the whole thing more real. Scary, too, because the manuscript is due in mid-June.

The Haunted Shell Shop mysteries are about widowed storyteller, Maureen Nash, who goes to Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, to find out why the owner of a notable shell shop has been writing cryptic letters to her late husband. She arrives on the tail end of a hurricane, the shop owner ends up dead, and Maureen is the prime suspect in his murder. She works to clear her name helped by a new . . . friend? This questionable friend is Emrys Lloyd, the ghost of a pirate who died in 1750. Although, as he insists, he was an accidental pirate and only that one time. The first book is called Come Shell or High Water.

Where did my inspiration for this setup come from? From some of the same places we all get our ideas—familiarity with the place (and a yen to spend more time there for real and in my head), from items I’ve read in the paper, snippets of overheard conversation, daydreams, details and memories of other places, other times, bits of history. Anything and everything can provide inspiration. Even, as it turns out, our bathroom sink.

Here's how that unlikely thing happened. I was brushing my teeth one morning, years ago, when a shape appeared in the bathroom sink. Think of it like looking for pictures in fluffy white clouds on a beautiful summer day, except this shape showed up in the somewhat unattractive beige faux marble. And instead of finding a bunny, or a camel, or a whale, I found a face. Not just any face, either. The face of a pirate. And not just a pirate, but the pirate’s hollow-eyed ghost with white brocade trim on his hat. Imagine my surprise. And my delight. Who wouldn’t want a haunted sink? As soon as I set eyes on him, Emrys sprang to life. In my head, thank goodness, and not our in our tiny bathroom; that would have been alarming. In Come Shell or High Water, Maureen is as startled to meet Emrys, the ghost pirate, as I was.

And so the fun begins.

Writers, what’s the most surprising tidbit that’s given you inspiration for a story?

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter  or Instagram.