An Interview with Connie Berry by Grace Topping

 One of the best things about becoming a member of the mystery-writing community is the friends you'll make. I met Connie Berry a number of years ago at Sleuthfest, a conference for mystery writers held each year in Florida. We both had manuscripts we had been working on for more years than we wanted to count. We met again at Malice Domestic and CrimeBake and later exchanged manuscripts for critique. A few years later, we sold our manuscripts about the same time and actually had our first books published within a month of each other. We truly traveled the path to publication together. In an ironic twist of fate, our first books were nominated for an Agatha Award for best first mystery. Neither one of us won, but Connie's books will always be a winner to me. Connie has gone on to win a number of other awards and most recently had one of her books nominated for an Edgar Award. Connie is a member of the Writers Who Kill family, and it was a pleasure interviewing her about her latest release, Mistletoe and Murder.

Mistletoe and Murder

Five days before her wedding to Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, Kate Hamilton finds her friend Sheila in need of her help. Sheila, a soon-to-be bride herself, needs Kate’s help to get Carl Curtis, her fiancé, out of Venezuela. His passport was taken from him by the authorities, and they say he owes them money. Carl says it’s a bribe, but he’s unable to leave unless it’s paid. Sheila decides to sell her grandfather’s coin collection, including a valuable gold coin presented by Queen Victoria to her great-grandmother. Among her grandfather’s stored possessions is a letter from the Queen. When someone breaks into Sheila’s house, all signs point to even more foul play. As Kate deals with a disturbing number of wedding-plan hitches, a fire in town reveals a body. Unfortunately, the burned-out flat is next to the bridal salon where Kate’s dress is being altered. Can the cleaners really eliminate the odor of smoke? 

As the clock ticks down to Kate and Tom’s “I do”s, Kate goes to Sheila’s house to help her search for the royal letter, but she’s nowhere to be found. The house has been torn apart, and Sheila is missing. Could Sheila’s disappearance be connected to the death in town? Kate will have to piece together the clues.  www.amazon.com

 Welcome, Connie.

In the midst of your Kate Hamilton series, you wrote the novella, Mistletoe and Murder, instead of a full-length novel. Why a novella? 

The short answer is timing. Traditional publishing isn’t a quick thing. Often a full year goes by from the finishing of a manuscript to the shipment of books to outlets. With the fifth book in my series scheduled for publication in late spring of 2024, I needed something to bridge the gap for my readers. I proposed a novella, and my publisher agreed. The deeper answer involves subject matter. Mistletoe and Murder covers six days leading up to Kate and Tom’s planned Christmas Eve wedding. Since my books are mysteries, not romances, the wedding—does it come off or not?—is a subplot. The main plot involves the mystery surrounding a client who vanishes along with a rare gold coin and a hand-written letter from Queen Victoria, leaving a single bloody fingerprint. Can Kate and Tom ignore this woman and go off on their honeymoon? Of course not.

 Other than the length of the story, is there anything different between a book and a novella?

 The main difference is length. A novella falls somewhere between a long short story and a full-length novel. Mistletoe and Murder has 38,000 words rather than my usual 90,000+. A novella has all the elements of a novel, but the shorter length requires a limited cast of characters and a more focused storyline with fewer subplots. This is the first novella I’ve written, and it was lots of fun to pare the story down to the essentials.

Each of your books has a rich and complex plot involving relationships, murder, and Kate’s knowledge of antiques. So often items from the past result in intrigue in the present. What is it about Kate that causes her to react to certain items?

Thank you for the compliment, Grace. Readers of the Kate Hamilton Mysteries know that Kate experiences a visceral reaction to objects of great age and beauty--usually a vague sense of joy or fear or grief, as if the emotional atmosphere in which an object once existed had seeped into the joints and crevices along with the dust and grime. Every once in a while, these impressions coalesce into something more specific and unsettling—a word. a phrase, even an image that alerts Kate to the fact that something nefarious is afoot. Kate, not one to credit such things as ESP, blames her overactive imagination, and she may be right. I use her experiences as a kind of metaphor for the truth, as William Faulkner put it, that “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” I love history. I wish time travel was real. And I enjoy exploring the echo of the past in the present.

 How much of the plot do you hash out before you start writing? Do you start with a specific antique in mind?

Like many writers, I’m a “plantser.” That means I plan out the major turning points in the plot but leave room to follow the characters as they make their way from point to point. I know in advance the major characters, the setting, and the particular object or objects that will act as a catalyst or focal point. That’s what gives me the confidence to write. I know the book is going somewhere. But I’m always surprised at the twists and turns the characters create along the way. That’s what makes the writing process exciting and fun!

Kate and Detective Inspector Tom Mallory‘s romance has been a part of your series from the first book. Did you plan to have romance in your mystery series? Or did your characters insist on it?

In the first book, A Dream of Death, Kate is forty-five, a recent widow with two college-age children. If I presented her as immune to the charms of an attractive man, I’d have to explain that in some way. While Kate isn’t looking for romance, Tom proves hard to resist. Although Kate’s first marriage was happy, in some ways her relationship with Tom is even better. Their gifts and skills complement each other, and they come to respect each other as human beings. Besides, it doesn’t hurt that Tom is a detective inspector. As Kate becomes involved in solving crimes, he’s a good source of information. Over the course of several books, Tom learns to trust Kate’s instincts and her ability to see patterns and connect dots. Together they make a formidable team.

Kate and Tom are faced with a decision that will determine their family relationships, careers, etc. What is that decision?

It has taken Kate a while to admit she’s in love with Tom. She also recognizes the irony. The only man she’s been attracted to since her husband’s death lives 3500 miles away from Ohio, where Kate has a thriving antiques business and her aging mother lives. If she and Tom are ever to be together, one of them will have to move. That’s the problem: which of them will give up their career and family obligations for love? And if they do, will they come to resent it? Grace, I happen to know you married a Brit, which means you and your husband faced these same questions.

 What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced placing American Kate in a British setting?

Setting the Kate books in the UK was always my plan. My paternal grandparents were Scottish, so I grew up partly in that culture. During college, I attended St. Clare’s, Oxford, and fell completely under the spell of the British Isles. I majored in British literature, read British history extensively, and since discovering the original members of the Detection Club, have adored classic British mysteries. The challenge, of course, is the fact that I’m not and never will be a native. That means there are nuances of language, culture, history, politics, and geography I won’t comprehend without research and time spent in the UK. That’s both a challenge and a joy. I love research (too much), and I spend time in the UK at least once a year. This past summer I asked a British woman, one of my beta readers, to pay special attention to “Britishisms”—had I gotten everything right? I learned something: while British people use common past participles such as have written, have eaten, have been, they never say have gotten. It’s always have got. I’d heard it spoken, but it never registered until she pointed it out. Of course if I get something wrong, I can blame it on Kate. She’s not British either.

 Besides being faced with a solving a murder, Kate has the additional hurdle of winning over Tom’s mother. What seems to be Mrs. Mallory’s problem with Kate?

 

Liz Mallory’s problem with Kate is two-fold. First, she doesn’t like Americans. Kate thinks Liz fears she will talk Tom into moving to the U.S. That fear plays into the underlying problem: Liz is overly dependent on her son. Tom’s father left the family early on, and Liz raised Tom alone, working full time to provide for them. When Tom’s first wife died, leaving him with a thirteen-year-old daughter, Liz moved in with them. Tom’s hours as a policeman were unpredictable, and he needed help. Liz became a second mother to Tom’s daughter. She kept house for them, cooked for them, and came to think of herself as indispensable in Tom’s life. Making room for another woman—Kate—isn’t something Liz is willing to do. In a word, she’s jealous. At the moment, Kate has pretty much given up trying to win her over. We’ll see what happens.

 Mistletoe and Murder is set during the Christmas holidays in England. Are the ways the holidays are celebrated in the UK much different than in the US?

 Many of the Christmas traditions in the UK are the same or similar in the US. We both decorate trees, put up mistletoe, eat turkey, and open presents. Some British traditions seem odd to us, though. Here are eight:

1.     Santa Claus is called Father Christmas.

2.     Children hang stockings at the ends of their beds rather than over the fireplace.

3.     Christmas in the UK means pantomimes (“pantos”)—slapstick comedies often based on fairy tales. There’s always a villain sneaking up on the hero/heroine, giving the audience a chance to yell, “He’s right behind you!”

4.     The King’s Christmas message on Christmas Day is one of the most-watched TV shows of the year.

5.     Small mince pies are eaten by everyone, everywhere, throughout the holidays.

6.     Christmas dinner includes a flaming Christmas pudding baked with a silver coin inside. The one who finds the coin will have good luck in the coming year.

7.     Christmas crackers are pulled, revealing a tiny gift, a paper hat, and a silly joke like this one: Why did Father Christmas go to the doctor? Because he had low elf esteem.

8.     Boxing Day, December 26, is a public holiday. No one knows how it got its name, but one theory claims it was created for people to box up unwanted Christmas gifts to give to the poor. I think it’s a great idea.

 How has Kate changed over the course of the series? Or has she?

When the series began, Kate had already suffered the loss of three much-loved men in her life. Her eleven-year-old brother, whom she adored, died when Kate was five. When she was seventeen, her father was killed in a car crash on Christmas Eve. Three years before the first book, her husband, Bill, died of a massive heart attack. In each case, the loss was completely unexpected, leaving Kate with an irrational fear of loss. Although she knows it isn’t true, in her world, when you love someone, they die. Now she’s given her heart completely to Tom—even though she understands that his work as a policeman puts him in danger. That has taken courage.

In England, Kate has also become involved in solving crimes, applying the expertise and research techniques she uses in the antiques trade to solve mysteries and unmask villains. Twice the police have hired her as a consultant in cases involving antiques, and she is gaining a reputation for noticing details and spotting connections others miss.

She’s changed in more practical ways as well. She sold her thriving antiques business in Ohio and now works with Ivor Tweedy in the Cabinet of Curiosities, an antiquities shop in Long Barston, Suffolk. She’s made new friends and has created a whole new life in England, leaving her old life behind.

Some things have not changed. Kate continues to worry about her mother, who’s in her late seventies and recently suffered a TIA. Being so far away from her is difficult. Kate also worries about her two children, especially her impulsive daughter, Christine, who tends to fall in love with feckless young men who disappoint her.

 What is the most valuable thing you’ve learned since you started writing?

 That’s a hard question because I’ve learned so much. I’ve always been a writer, but learning the craft of fiction-writing involved a rather steep learning curve. I’ve also learned a lot about traditional publishing, especially the fact that it takes more time to produce a book than most people realize. Perhaps the most valuable thing I’ve learned, though, is the fact that the crime-fiction community is incredibly supportive and welcoming. As they say, “No one needs to fail so that I can succeed.” So true.

 You’ve taken on a new role in the mystery-writing community. Please tell us about it.

 One of the smartest things I did as a new writer was join Sisters in Crime and their online chapter, Guppies. Guppies exists primarily to help new authors improve their craft and move forward toward publication, but many of our 1100+ members are published and stick around because we love the community. This past July I took over the presidency of Guppies, working with a fabulous Steering Committee, to offer classes on all aspects of writing; opportunities for manuscript critiques; a forum for networking with others; a place to ask questions; and opportunities to join small groups with a specific focus such as writing short stories or querying. We also publish a quarterly newsletter filled with helpful information. This year we’ve also decided to publish our eighth anthology with submissions open to our members. More information will be forthcoming!

What’s next for Kate and Tom?

 Great question! If you read A Collection of Lies (coming June 2024), you’ll know that Kate’s life is taking an unexpected turn. I’m currently planning the main plot lines for a new book but don’t have any information yet about a possible publication date. I’m also plotting out a new series, a historical that shall remain a secret for now.

Thank you so much, Grace, for asking wonderful questions!