An Interview with Author Teresa Michael by Martha Reed

Q: Tell us about yourself. When did you know you wanted to write mysteries?

A: I’ve always loved a good story and especially a good mystery. I started reading Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Mysteries when I was a kid. When I had a traveling job, I read a lot of Sue Grafton, Tess Gerritsen, Michael Connelly, Sarah Paretsky, John Sandford, and more. I started writing in college, then went into healthcare and did a lot of technical writing. After I moved to Florida, I returned to writing fiction, mostly mysteries with a touch of romance.

Q: Libby Marshall, your protagonist in the Mariposa Café Mysteries, is in a self-imposed witness protection program. Libby has started her new life and career as a café owner. What inspired you to give her this backstory and to develop Libby as a character?

A: The five main characters in the Mariposa Café Mysteries were created around 2008 when I was finishing up my Creative Writing degree. My thesis assignment was to create three interconnected short stories. I love mysteries, coffee shops, musical theater, and a juicy backstory.  The stories and characters melded together around those themes.  After I graduated, those characters stayed with me, and I wondered what would happen if Libby found a body—sort of a locked room mystery.  Nine years later, Murder in Mariposa Beach was the result.  During the pandemic, my editor at the time recommended that I update the thesis stories and publish them, which I did as the Mariposa Café Mystery Origin Stories. I use it as a giveaway at appearances, and the first story acts as a reader/lead magnet to sign up for my newsletter.

Q: The Mariposa Café Mysteries features four fearless, female sleuths. What inspired this idea?

A:  I enjoy stories of female sleuths and the strength and empowerment of female friendships. Sometimes you just need your girlfriends—especially when there’s a party to crash or a murder to solve.

Q: Why did you set the series in Southwest Florida?

A: Going back to the thesis, I believe one of the criteria was that it had to be set in Florida. I moved to Florida from Ohio, and it was easy to give my main character the same location trajectory.  Plus, I wanted to write a mystery set in a little Florida beach town, and my main character needed a reason to be there.

Q: Your new Harrington House Mysteries offers a charming small-town Ohio setting. Why did you decide to change settings and write a new and different series?

A: I’d finished the 4^th book in the series, Redemption in Mariposa Beach, and Libby’s story arc that began in book 1 concluded in book 4. I needed to decide whether to create a new storyline for Libby and friends or start a new series.  Then, I got an idea for a series set in a bed-and-breakfast and thought the rolling hills of Southern Ohio, where I grew up, would be a beautiful location.

Q: What was it like creating an entirely new and fresh set of characters?

A: That was a challenge for me because I didn’t want this series to be Libby Marshall in Ohio. So, I gave Molly Harrington a different tragic backstory. Molly’s backstory died; Libby’s backstory keeps showing up and giving her a hard time. Plus, the characters are physically different, have different occupations, but share some of the basic values of truth and justice.

Q: The Harrington House Mysteries include a ‘spirited’ character. Tell us a little about her (no spoilers!)

A:  Elnora Harrington is Molly’s great aunt, who, although she ceased living in the 1920s, never moved out of the ancestral home. She enjoys electricity, watching television, reading over one’s shoulder, listening in on conversations, and she comes in handy in a pinch. I got the idea for a new mystery series while visiting my daughter and granddaughter in Cincinnati. I stayed at a local B&B in their historic neighborhood and had a late-night experience that made me think a haunted bed-and-breakfast could be really cool and fun to write.

Q: What’s next on the horizon? Do you have a new book coming out, and when?

A: The Wedding Planner’s Secret, book 2 in the Harrington House Mysteries, is due to come out in the Fall. I don’t have the exact publication date yet.  I’m almost 10,000 words into book 3 of the Harrington House series and about 5,000 words into book 5 of the Mariposa series. It’s going to be a challenge working on both at the same time and figuring out how these two worlds intersect.

Q: Both of your series include yummy recipes. Do you have a personal favorite?

A: That’s a hard choice. The recipes don’t make it into the book unless I’ve tried them and liked them. For breakfast foods, I like the Cranberry orange scones, the French toast (the amaretto makes it special), and the Clifton House breakfast bowl. For lunch/dinner, the meatloaf is good, as is the gumbo. Check out the recipes on my website: https://teresamichaelwrites.pubsitepro.com.

Q: Tell us something surprising about yourself. Is it true you participated in the Olympic Games?

A: I was the Team Manager for US Archery for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. I also traveled with the team to several Senior and Junior World Championship tournaments all over the world. I had boundless adventures and challenges traveling with an elite sports team including being stranded in Cuba for three days and wrangling fourteen teenagers through Italy. The most amazing and yet surreal experience was the honor of marching in the Opening Ceremonies.

Q: I see from your website you’ve attended many crime fiction and mystery conferences like Sleuthfest and Bouchercon. What value do you find in attending conferences?

A: Attending in-person conferences is an invaluable experience for learning, for networking, meeting new authors, stepping outside of your comfort zone, and becoming a part of the writing community. There’s that in-person interaction that you can’t obtain virtually.

Q: In addition to writing award-winning mysteries, you offer a presentation highlighting your expertise on the use of Bookbrush, Canva, and Pubsite – three essential tools and platforms writers need. Please tell us a little about each one and why a writer should know about them.

A: Bookbrush is a graphics design application created specifically for authors. There are lots of genre-based templates that can be modified to fit your needs, or you can create a graphic from scratch. The templates meet the size requirements for all the social media platforms, and you can also create bookmarks, postcards, business cards, book trailers, and the like.

Canva is a general-use graphics design application that, in addition to flyers, promotional graphics, bookmarks, postcards, and business cards, you can also create and run presentations, create whiteboards, storyboards, collages, mind maps, print products, and lots more. It also supports all social platforms and has templates you can modify or create your own. Both Bookbrush and Canva have various levels of subscriptions, from free to premium.

Pubsite is a website builder created especially for authors. Their tutorials walk the user through the steps and there is a consulting service if you need help or want them to build the site for you. The templates are easy to modify, and I can do the updates myself.

Q: Murder with a Terrace View received an Author’s Guild Mark of Literary Authenticity, the “Human Authored” certification for human creativity in our new AI world. What are your thoughts on our brave new AI world?

A: It’s important to me for my readers to know that I wrote my book, and it is not an AI-generated book. I use editing software like Grammarly and ProWriting Aid, and I use Google search for research and reference purposes. When researching, I also read related books, which I reference in the Acknowledgements section of each book. But the characters, plots, and the prose are all created by me. The Author’s Guild Human Authored Certification is a way to differentiate human-generated works from AI-generated works.

Q: You use social media like #patioreading on Instagram and Facebook and send out a newsletter. How important is keeping in touch with your reading fans?

A: I started the #patioreading because people are always asking me what I’m reading. I also hashtag the authors, the book title, and any other pertinent information in the post. This is a good way to keep in touch with readers, give a shout-out to the authors, and receive recommendations.  Newsletters are a great way to communicate with readers about upcoming events, my current works in progress, and any newsworthy items. I include a section called “What I’m Reading And Watching” where I mention books, movies, and television shows/series I like.  I also include photos from events and travel and occasionally photos of a child, grandchild, dog, cat, or flower.

Thanks, Teresa, for sharing your books and your world with us!

It's Back! By Nancy L. Eady

This weekend is a huge weekend at our house. Of course, the Labor Day holiday on Monday is enjoyable, but the highlight of the weekend is the start of the 2025 Auburn University football season. (Long-suffering Auburn fans will understand when I say that the unofficial team motto is “We’re Auburn; we make the game exciting no matter who we play.”)

More than just Auburn, it is the “official” start of college football nationwide, except for a handful of games that were played as kickoff classics last weekend. Through January, a football game will be available on TV just about any night, which allows me to read and write and craft while my husband watches TV. Unless it is an Auburn game on TV, I can do a host of things while a football game is on and still follow the game. 

I like this time of year  — the few days before the college season starts. It is ripe with possibilities. Every team is undefeated, and every fan of every team deep in their heart has the hope that maybe this year will be THE year, the year that their team wins the whole shebang to walk away with the 2025-2026 NCAA Division I College Championship. At the end of this weekend, half of the teams will be a step closer to that dream, while the other half of the teams will have taken a step back from it. 

That same sense of possibility exists the moment I open a new document to begin a new story. I don’t know where I will end up, who I will end up with, and what we will have done to get there, but I know at that moment, the moment of beginning, that anything is possible. 

The stretch of time and effort between that moment of beginning and when I have a product I believe is worthy of publication is different. That effort and time are what makes writing “The End” on the last edit of the last draft before you send your baby out into the cold, cruel world to seek its fortune so fulfilling. 

But the best thrill I ever had from writing was the time someone turned to me and, in talking about something I had published in a magazine, said, “I read your story, and it meant a lot to me.” 

What is your favorite part of writing?

 

The Mystery Writers' Oath by Connie Berry

   Do you promise that your detective shall well and truly detect the crimes

   presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon

   them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation,

   Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act 

   of God?

 

This oath, written either by Dorothy L. Sayers or possibly G. K. Chesterton, was (and still is) part of the initiation rites of the famous Detection Club.

Sayers, one of the founding members, said: “The Detection Club is a private association of writers of detective fiction in Great Britain, existing chiefly for the purpose of eating dinners together at suitable intervals and of talking illimitable shop…. Its membership is confined to those who have written genuine detective stories (not adventure tales or ‘thrillers’) and election is secured by a vote of the club on recommendation by two or more members and involves the undertaking of an oath.”

The club was founded in London in 1930 and had twenty-six founding members, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, G. K. Chesterton, Freeman Wills Crofts, Baroness Orczy, Ronald Knox, E. C. Bentley, R. Austin Freeman, and Anthony Berkeley.

In addition to the oath, the members of the club promised to follow the Ten Commandments of Mystery in order to “play fair” with their readers.

1.      The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story but must not be anyone whose thought the reader has been allowed to follow.

2.    All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

3.     Not more than one secret room or passage is allowed.

4.    No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.

5.     No chinamen must figure in the story [Note: this was a time in which “dime novels” tended to feature foreigners on whom the crime could be conveniently blamed].

6.    No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.

7.     The detective himself must not himself commit the crime.

8.    The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.

9.     The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.

10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

Anyone familiar with Agatha Christie’s novels will know she violated several of the rules. A story still circulates (never corroborated) that several of the Detection Club members considered expelling her after the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but she wasn’t expelled. In fact, she was its president from 1957 until her death in 1976.

Does the Detection Club still exist?

Yes, although the fair-play rules have been considerably relaxed. The current president is Martin Edwards, the British crime novelist, critic, and historian. You may have read his book The Golden Age of Murder or his masterful introductions to the British Library Crime Classic series. Some of us have had the privilege of meeting him at mystery conferences.

The original members of the Detection Club were warned by Chesterton against breaking the rules:

If you fail to remember your promises…may other writers anticipate your plots; may total strangers sue you for libel; may your pages swarm with misprints and your sales continually diminish. But should you…recall these promises and observe the rules, may reviewers rave over you and literary editors lunch you; may book clubs bargain for you; may films be made from you (and keep your plots)….”

A copy of the Mystery Writers’ Oath is posted above my desk, reminding me especially that while coincidences can happen in crime novels (as they do in life), they are allowed to get your protagonist into trouble but never out of it.

How about you? Could you sign the oath?

 

An Interview with Alyssa Maxwell by E. B. Davis

 

April 1903: Emma and Derrick Andrews have been invited to the wedding of her cousin Reggie Vanderbilt and heiress Cathleen Neilson at the Bellevue Avenue Mansion, Arleigh. Their hosts are a popular young couple who are leasing the home for the summer—Harry and Elizabeth “Bessie” Lehr. Known for his practical jokes, Harry is the toast of parties, earning a reputation as the court jester of the Gilded Age. However, as Emma soon learns, behind closed doors he is dead serious.

Following the wedding, Bessie comes to Emma for help, insisting that her husband is cruel to her in private, telling her outright he married her only for her money and finds her repulsive. Divorce is unthinkable. Now she believes he is plotting to murder her and make it look like an accident: a broken balcony railing she might have leaned on, a loose stair runner that could have sent her tumbling down a staircase, faulty brakes in the car she uses . . .

Some would say being trapped in a loveless marriage is a fate worse than death. Not Bessie—she wants to live! Unsure if these situations are mere coincidences or add up to premeditated sabotage, Emma agrees to investigate and determine if Newport’s merry prankster is engaged in a cold-blooded game of life or death. . .

Amazon.com

 

I can’t believe Murder At Arleigh is Alyssa Maxwell’s thirteenth book in the Gilded Newport Mystery series. In this book, Alyssa explores the changing ideas concerning women’s legal rights and the social stigmas that still dominated at the time, 1903, the year her story takes place. Although I loved the story, it is Alyssa’s historian notes at the end that really fascinated me. I’ll get to that later.

 

Bessie Lehr (who really existed), one of The Four Hundred—a social standing still prevailing at the turn of the century—comes to Emma for her investigative prowess. She claims her husband is trying to kill her and there are past incidents that seem to substantiate her claim. Having witnessed a conversation that proved Bessie and Harry Lehr’s fairy-tale marriage a falsehood and since Bessie doesn’t want the police involved, Emma agrees to investigate.

 

Please welcome Alyssa Maxwell back to WWK!                       E. B. Davis

 

The automobile is taking over in 1903, and opening up whole new industries. Why does Emma have a problem with cars? Will she get a driver’s license?

 

While Emma accepts that automobiles are here to stay, she would prefer not to have them overrun Aquidneck Island. Life there, in her view, has always been influenced by the tides, with a certain rhythm and a methodic ebb and flow. Cars were noisy and smelly. Rules of the road were still being established, and fast, reckless driving wasn’t uncommon. Her own cousin, Reggie, exemplifies the problems cars brought to the island. It’s said pedestrians and livestock alike were in danger whenever he got behind the wheel. Emma would like to preserve the tranquility of island life – that is, when murders aren’t being committed!

 

Because of automation, mankind’s relationship with animals also changed. (I always feel sorry for horses and donkeys.) Automation usurped their function in our society. Did Emma feel indulgent keeping her horses when she no longer had to rely on them?

 

In 1903 we’re still a couple of decades away from automobiles completely replacing horses. There were basically three types of cars at the time – electric, gas-powered, and steam-powered. None of them were particularly reliable, were prone to breaking down, and most people considered them a luxury, not a necessity. So no, Emma doesn’t at all feel frivolous about keeping her horses or continuing to use her carriage. One of the horses, Barney, is too old now to pull a gig, so keeping him might be somewhat indulgent, but she feels she owes her old carriage horse a happy retirement.

 

Emma and Derrick attend the wedding of her cousin Reginald (Reggie) Vanderbilt that was weirdly located at Arleigh House, which was being rented that summer by Bessie and Harry Lehr. Reggie was on the outs with his family, although he had already inherited. So, it seems plausible to have the wedding at Arleigh House rather than at The Breakers. They later find out the why, but how did the Lehrs come to lend their albeit temporary home to Reggie?

 

Actually, Reggie was his mother’s favorite – and always would be – so it’s entirely plausible they could have held the wedding at The Breakers. But traditionally it’s the bride’s family who makes the wedding arrangements, and apparently Cathleen’s mother accepted the Lehrs’ offer. Why the Lehr’s specifically? For whatever reason, they were able to be in Newport for the April wedding, when most other members of the Four Hundred wouldn’t have opened up their summer cottages yet. Most weddings of the Four Hundred would have taken place in New York City, but as I’ll discuss farther on, Reggie had reasons to avoid being in New York at this time.

 

Bessie has what today would be called a teacup dog. Did tiny dogs exist at this time? Most dogs were “working” dogs. Why would they name their dog Hippodale? 

 

I don’t know the exact story behind the name Hippodale, other than Harry Lehr named him, and that wealthy dog owners at the time often chose fancy, unique-sounding names to lend their pets a certain cachet. It’s true that so far in history most animals worked to earn their keep, especially in rural areas. But with industrialization and automation, fewer working animals were needed and the idea of keeping pets became ever more popular. However, lapdogs have existed for centuries – we see them in portraits ranging from the Middle Ages through the present day. Papillons are an old breed, as are Pekinese, Pugs, and even Chihuahuas. Most small dogs weren’t bred for work, but rather to be cuddly companions, as they are today. I was glad Bessie Lehr had such a companion; Hippodale must have brought her comfort when she needed it. But since Harry named the pooch and did take part in caring for the animal (as I read in Elizabeth Lehr’s book, King Lehr), I surmised the two of them must have had an affinity for each other.

 

Whereas Emma thought long and hard about marrying Derrick, Bessie wasn’t a widow long before she married again. Why would she do that, especially considering that she was in control of her own fortune? And in real life, as per your author’s notes, after Harry dies, she marries again, and again the marriage isn’t a joyful one. Did Bessie never learn?

 

Although Emma isn’t alone in her hesitation to marry (the daughters of Senator George Wetmore of Chateau-sur-Mer, for example, never married by choice), her attitude certainly wasn’t the norm at the time. Most women were raised to be wives and mothers, and Elizabeth Lehr might simply have felt at a loss as a single woman. She might also have been an optimist, especially after her first, and quite happy marriage. Certainly she was encouraged by Harry’s female friends, the very formidable Alva Belmont, Tessie Oelrichs, and Mamie Fish, to marry him, and until their wedding night she had no reason to expect their life together to be anything but happy. As for her third marriage, she never consented to the divorce her husband, Lord Decies, petitioned for, and died only months after he did.

Unlike England, in the US women had the legal right to have their own money. Harry didn’t have any legal or ethical way to take Bessie’s ownership away. Why did Alva Vanderbilt, Tessie Oelrichs and Mamie Fish (all real people) encourage the match?

 

Those three ladies, as well as others, adored him. He was a charmer, a flatterer, and the life of every party – a grifter by today’s standards, actually – but Harry barely had a cent to his name and they were determined to remedy that. They wanted the best for him, wanted to see him maintain the extravagant lifestyle he had come to enjoy. Hence their enthusiasm to see him married to a wealthy woman. Did they know Harry was gay? That’s hard to say. It would never have been openly acknowledged, but it’s possible they suspected and wanted to help him conceal the truth by seeing him safely married.

 

When Emma asks Bessie why she won’t divorce Harry, Bessie says her mother would be heartbroken. But when we meet Bessie’s mom, it seems she is more about power and control than religious beliefs. Why did Victorian parents get so overly involved in their children’s lives?

 

In the story, Bessie’s mother declares that her daughter would never find salvation if she divorced her husband. I have no doubt the real Lucy Wharton Drexel, a staunch Catholic, firmly believed this to be true. But parenting was different in those days. There was no democracy within the family structure: parents commanded, and children, even adult children, were expected to obey. So yes, power struggles did play into parent-child relationships, sometimes to the point of nearly obscuring the true issue, in this case that of religious conviction.

 

Did men still have the right to incarcerate their wives in insane asylums? More than one woman says to Emma that Bessie is a “flibbertigibbet.” Is this a code word for mentally unstable? Would this give Harry the right to commandeer Bessie’s fortune?

 

By flibbertigibbet, Bessie’s friends were merely implying she could at times be fretful and a bit flighty. But they would have gained this impression from Harry himself, wouldn’t they? As for her fortune, the fact that Bessie remained in control of the finances after remarrying suggests her husband’s and father’s wills were written in such a way as to protect her interests, along with those of her son by her first marriage. Having Bessie committed would probably have left Harry worse off, because the money would have gone into a trust for her son.

 

You mentioned that the city of Newport played a role in slavery. Were slaves brought into the country via Newport? Was it an open practice or were they smuggled in? Are there tunnels under other cottages?

 

First let me say the tunnel depicted beneath Arleigh is entirely fictional. As for slavery, yes, Newport played a large role in slavery during colonial times. Slaves were brought to the city and sold from there. Some remained in Newport and the surrounding area, working on farms and in households, while others were transported south. This was done openly, as at the time slavery was legal and generally accepted. Many Newport sea merchants made their fortunes in the Triangle Trade where slaves were transported from Africa to the Caribbean to work on the sugar plantations and in the production of molasses. The molasses was then distilled into rum and sold throughout the colonies. There was an old rumor that tunnels existed below Touro Synagogue, used to smuggled enslaved people out of Newport and to freedom, but it’s been proven that no such tunnels ever existed there. Other tunnels may have been used to elude the British tax collectors before and during the Revolution.

 

Was the Canfield case real? Was Reggie involved?

 

Yes, the Canfield Case involved illegal gambling practices and the swindling of patrons at a casino in Saratoga Springs, NY, in 1903. Reggie was involved and was subpoenaed to testify for the prosecution, but as a witness and a victim, not as a culprit. Not wishing to become any more involved than he already was and wanting to avoid the publicity of what was a very public trial, he fled New York to avoid the summons. This is why he and his young bride, Cathleen, married in Newport and not in New York City, as would have been more fashionable.

 

There were two facts you presented in your notes that brought this story full circle. The first was that Reggie was Gloria Vanderbilt’s father, but the woman he marries in this book isn’t Gloria’s mother. What happened?

Reggie and Cathleen, his first wife, divorced in 1919. Apparently, in 1912 Reggie abandoned Cathleen and their daughter in Paris without leaving them a dime to get by on. By then it would have been quite clear to Cathleen that Reggie was a hopeless gambler and alcoholic. That the couple had only one child is perhaps a hint that their relationship had essentially fallen apart years earlier, and one can only assume the lingering stigma over divorce is all that prevented Cathleen from suing Reggie for divorce sooner than she did. It was four years after the divorce, in 1923, that Reggie married the beautiful socialite, Gloria Morgan, who was eighteen at the time, just as Cathleen had been at her wedding. Reggie and Gloria would also have only one child, Gloria Vanderbilt. But their marriage was short-lived. Reggie died in 1925 from advanced cirrhosis of the liver, leaving his wife to battle the Vanderbilt family, and specifically Reggie’s sister, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, over custody of Little Gloria.

 

The other fact, which I looked up in Kindle—Bessie eventually wrote a book about Harry after he died in 1929. It also must have been after her mother died, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine her outing so much publicly, and yet she did. The book is titled, “King Lehr” and the Gilded Age. Did she pose that Harry was homosexual? Do you know the public reaction to the book?

 

King Lehr and the Gilded Age was published long after Bessie’s mother had died. In it she implies that her husband was gay, but only in so many words. But while it’s never clearly stated, the reader is left in little doubt. I’ve read that at the time, the book was termed “devastating” in the press, and that it “depicted the extravagances of a society which can now seem only empty and a little vulgar.” But WWI and the Depression had changed society drastically, chipping away the gilded veneer to show the scars and warts beneath. Twenty or thirty years earlier, this book undoubtedly would have shocked, scandalized, and enraged members of society. But by 1935, the year of publication, people had become pretty disillusioned and world-weary.

 

The real Arleigh House no longer exists. Who was it owned by and what happened to it? Are you running out of “cottages?”

 

Although Arleigh is a lesser known Newport Cottage, it has an interesting history. Originally, a different house stood there and was known as Parker Cottage. A Mrs. Mary Matthews (the longtime mistress of Isaac Singer of the Singer Sewing Company) bought the property in 1893 and replaced the old house with Arleigh, designed in the Queen Anne style. Unfortunately, she died before the house was completed and her daughter, Florence Ruthven-Pratt, inherited. She and her husband didn’t care for Newport society, however, and so the house began a long history of being leased by a series of illustrious tenants, including the Lehrs, until the early 1930s. At that time Mrs. Ruthven-Pratt simply stopped paying the taxes on the property. The house was sold at auction and almost immediately – and suspiciously – burned to the ground. Today, a nursing home occupies the property. You ask if I’m running out of cottages. Not yet!

 

What’s next for Emma and Derrick?

 

Their adventures continue only several weeks later, in the summer of 1903. Silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs, or Tessie as she was known to her friends (yes, there’s Bessie and Tessie), holds her glorious “White Ball,” where not only are the elaborate floral decorations pure white, but the gowns worn by the women guests as well, with most men sporting white vests and bowties. This all-white theme – thought up by none other than Harry Lehr – included swans in the fountain and white yachts floating offshore beyond the cliffs. The evening is magical, until an uninvited guest makes an outrageous claim about Tessie and threatens to topple her well-ordered world. Did I mention there’s a fountain on the property? By the end of the evening, there’s more than swans floating in its bubbling water.

 

As Emma investigates to find the culprit, she finds herself struggling with the wealth she now enjoys as the result of an inheritance from her Uncle Cornelius and her marrying Derrick. The events at Rosecliff lead her to question whether wealth will change her values as it has for so many members of the Four Hundred, who often seem shallow and insincere to her. It forces her to look deeper at her own life and theirs, and perhaps draw some new conclusions. She’s also running into resistance when it comes to the new school for girls she and husband Derrick wish to build. Many in town oppose the idea of teaching girls the same curriculum as boys; they also resist the idea of Emma, a woman, taking the reins on the project rather than allowing Derrick to handle things. How will she find an architect willing to work with her? Emma is nothing if not resourceful, and she certainly never takes no for an answer!

 

  

Bio:

Alyssa Maxwell is the author of The Gilded Newport Mysteries and A Lady and Lady’s Maid Mysteries, with over twenty books in print. The Gilded Newport series was inspired by her husband’s deep Newport roots, which go back numerous generations. Murder at The Breakers, the first book in that series and a USA Bestseller, has been adapted for television by the Hallmark Mystery Channel. Maxwell and her husband recently moved across the country from Florida to California, where they continue to enjoy their favorite activities: antiquing, bike riding, and hiking (sort of) in nature preserves. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. For more about Alyssa and her books, please visit http://alyssamaxwell.com and the following links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlyssaMaxwellauthor 

Instagram: http://instagram.com/alyssamaxwellauthor  

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/alyssa-maxwell

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@alyssamaxwellauthor

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7163135.Alyssa_Maxwell

 

You Never Know What You'll Learn by Martha Reed

Sisters in Crime, a now global mystery and crime fiction activist and support organization, was founded in 1986 to “promote the ongoing advancement, recognition and professional development of women crime writers.”

I’ve been a SinC member for twenty years, and I’ve taken their mission statement to heart. One thing I’ve done to “pay it forward” (or to pay it back) was to volunteer as a mentor for their SinC Connect Mentoring Program.

This is my second year serving as a mentor. Although initially I was nervous, I’ve found the experience to be a joyful one.

My first mentee was a veteran television producer who was changing tack mid-stream to develop her new crime writing career. Working with her gave me key insights into the previously unknown world of television production, TV showrunners, writers’ rooms, and the development of series for the new streaming services. “Oh, brave new world that has such people in it!” (William Shakespeare, The Tempest).

This year’s mentee is a completely different story. A twenty-something woman from Texas, she’s teetering on the idea (and I think the romantic thrill of it, didn’t we all?) of becoming a writer. She’s gotten as far as journaling. She’s considering launching a blog. In our monthly conversations, I’ve been walking her through creative story basics: POV choices, three-act structure, character development, effective dialogue usage. Instead of drafting an overwhelming 85,000 word manuscript, I’ve suggested she start with short stories and flash fiction. She’s been open to my suggestions, but next to her fragile Gen Z newbie hesitation, I feel like a monstrous T-Rex.

During our first few one-a-month calls I felt like I was walking on eggshells. I was working with a newbie! This required delicate handling. A generation separated us and our perspectives. I was terrified I might inadvertenly cause irreversible damage. EEK! What if I screwed her up?

It was paralyzing. Not only did we have different story goals and long-term visions, we had different target audiences. My readership demographic (according to SinC’s Annual Business of Books Survey Report) is older White women living in the Southeastern United States who still use Facebook for their social media. Gen Z uses Instagram (89%), YouTube (84%), and TikTok (82%).

Was my mentoring advice even relevant? Did I offer any modern-day value?

And then, as I got to know her better, our mentoring conversation flipped on its head. I realized that not only was she learning from me, I was learning from her. And what I’ve learned made my characters better.

For instance, my Gen Z characters now actively use slang. I needed to study it, to learn the vocabulary, and the grammar. To learn that ‘Bet’ means ‘Yes’ and that ‘Dope’ or ‘Dank’ means a good thing. The first time I correctly dropped ‘That’s my vibe’ into my conversation, my Gen Z niece’s jaw fell open. Dinosaur, indeed.

Have you ever been a mentor, or a mentee? What did you get from your experience?

Communication by Nancy L. Eady

I was born into a world where the most widespread method of long-distance communication was the rotary telephone, and the quickest communication came by telegraph. That didn’t count for overseas calls, though. We lived in Taiwan during the Watergate years, and we almost never telephoned people back in the United States. It was difficult to do so, and expensive. We would record cassette tapes with various things on them to send back to our grandparents. 

When I got married in 1987, communication had changed little beyond the invention of the push-button phone and the answering machine. If my husband went to the store, and I forgot to tell him something we needed, my only choice to get the missing item was to wait until the next time one of us returned to the store. The closest thing we had to a computer at home was a scientific calculator. My husband learned how to use a slide rule in high school, although I never had to. 

Things in the communication and computer realms heated up once we hit the late 1990s and early 2000s. I can still remember the first time I ever used a cell phone. My boss had asked me to take his car somewhere, and he had a car phone installed in it. While in the drive-through at McDonald’s, I called my husband just because I could. I was almost giddy and a little silly during this quick conversation, forgetting that the drive-through speaker was two-way. When I turned the corner to pick up my food at the window, the McDonald’s staff was in gales. 

We bought my first car phone in the mid-90s. I was going to school at night, driving about fifty miles each way through very rural areas, and Mark worried about what would happen to me if I broke down in the middle of nowhere. The early car phones came in a bag, and you had to charge them through the car charger for them to work. I was bad about not remembering to charge it. One night, my car broke down, and I had forgotten to charge my phone, so I had enough battery to dial our home number and have him answer with, “Hello.” Then the phone would die, and I couldn’t tell him what was going on. He figured out what was going on, and came and found me, but he was furious. 

It wasn’t until 2001 that I broke down and switched from my bag phone to a flip phone, but after that the updates continued roughly every two years until today, when I now have a phone that I suspect is smarter than me. 

Reflecting these changes in my writing can be challenging. I have to remember when plotting that it is very rare these days for someone to be both out of touch and unreachable. This means for a character to be in true peril, completely left to her own devices, she either must be without a cell phone, in a dead zone (they’ve gotten rare but they still exist) or be in close enough proximity to the bad guys that they remove her phone. There are other plausible possibilities, but it’s not as easy to be isolated these days as it was in the days of the rotary, plug in phone.

How have your plots had to adapt to changing technologies? What do you find most challenging to write about with modern communication and computer gadgets? 

 

The Devil’s in the Details by Annette Dashofy

As I’m sure everyone knows by now, it takes a while to write a novel. Some of us take longer than others. I’m not here to debate how long it should take. If you write four books a year, cool. I’m envious. If you write one book every couple of years, cool. I totally get it. 

While it takes a considerable amount of time to write the book, the story usually takes place over a matter of days or weeks. Let’s face it, most of us don’t write family sagas set over decades and generations. 

James A. Michener is not one of our fellow Writers Who Kill. 

My current WIP is set in mid-August, in the very area where I live. Convenient as far as getting all the sensations correct. It’s hot. It’s muggy. It’s sunny, but occasional thunderstorms pop up, dump a bunch of rain, and then the sun comes back out and turns the puddles into steam. There are also bugs. Cicadas buzz in the trees. Spotted Lantern Flies have returned. Orb Weaver spiders construct amazing, often huge, webs. The birds have fallen largely silent. 

Much of this will make it into the book to anchor my readers in this place and time.

However, I started writing it in April. I’ve frequently written stories set in the dead of winter while sweating in July. And vice versa. Since it takes me nine to twelve months to complete a novel, I do usually find myself working on part of it during the actual season in which it’s set. Like my current WIP. But I’m also starting or completing it in a totally different time.

How do I make sure to get the details of setting and all five senses correct? Of course, I’ve lived through enough summers, falls, winters, and springs to remember what they’re like. But will I remember the tiniest detail that might offer the biggest impact? Maybe. Maybe not. (I intentionally forget how annoying Spotted Lantern Flies are.)

Here’s my trick. I already have a folder for story details. Character names and what they look like. What kind of car they drive. Where they live. Their favorite foods and beverages. It’s a simple matter to add a weather/season file. I may have no clue what will happen or what I’ll need to know, so I create a document that resembles a daily diary, except it only includes the little stuff. Chilly mornings, fog lying in the valleys, the mockingbird serenading me from the maple tree, the sweat trickling down my back, the itchiness of bug bites, the smell of fresh cut grass.

Of course, my winter diary is totally different.

Dear readers, do you enjoy the minutiae that place you squarely in a story’s world? And fellow Writers Who Kill, do you have any tricks for including (and remembering) sensory details for your settings? 

Do You Believe in Serendipity? - By Judy L. Murray

…In good karma? Or is it just coincidence? Jane Marple considers coincidence suspect, often deliberate. Yet I’ve decided as writers we experience ‘accidental’ moments quite often.

Last week my husband and I took a quick two-night trip. We were hungry for a bit of adventure before a big surgery. I picked a large historic B&B in Connecticut. It turned out to be the perfect choice. Charming, immaculate, and with delightful touches. But within hours he was under the weather. I was left to myself while he slept through the two days.

Restless and alone, I tucked into a tiny side room on the B&B’s first floor when a small dark-haired woman looked in. “I’m sorry, I was curious about this spot. I didn’t mean to intrude.” She smiled. I smiled back. “Of course not,” I replied. “My husband is sleeping. I’m returning a few calls.” The woman lifted two wine glasses in her hand. “My friends and I are in the fireplace room. Do you want to join us?” I began to protest, then stopped. “That’s so nice of you. I think I will.”

Which leads me to the subject of ‘community’ and how karma can pull us together at just the right time. The definition is ‘a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society’.

In mysteries, authors tend to place their protagonist within their own imagined community. It might be Port Anne, a small Maryland town on the Chesapeake in my series. Perhaps a community is like the famous Jane Marple’s St. Mary Mead or Jessica Fletcher’s Cabot Cove. It’s not just geography. Community incorporates characters’ work, personal hobbies, the styles and ages of their houses, even the weather. It becomes a shared commonality that binds residents together or perhaps drives them apart.

The term community is an important means for building reader attachment. Good writers inspire their readers to feel emotionally connected to their characters. Certainly in a series, fans anticipate the next book because of their evolving affection for a circle of characters. We laugh at the silly ones, root for those fighting crime, and cheer at the conclusion.

Writing can feel lonely. Yet we also know our characters become our special community of friends while we create their story. And the real people we meet when we’re out and about can provide us encouragement. Readers send me photos of my books on coffee tables, book shelves, beach chairs, and tote bags. They drive an hour and a half from home to purchase their signed copy at a signing. Their efforts to reach out touches my heart. It leaves me grateful. They become a vast community that keeps me writing.

Do you have an incident where karma or coincidence evolved into building your readership community? I wonder if our readers know how important they are to us or influence our stories.

Judy

Author, The Chesapeake Bay Mysteries Series

An Occupational Hazard by Nancy L. Eady

I am a gentle soul. Acting out in violence is foreign to me. My demeanor is such that in a store or park where someone is searching for directions, I am the person they ask. (Bad choice by the way; I am terrible at giving directions.  I once sent an attorney trying to find our office thirty miles in the wrong direction by trying to “help” them with directions over the phone.)  But I am also a mystery writer. An occupational hazard of which is the musing that leads to the question “Would this work as a murder?” 

For example, the other day, I was alone in the house and taking a shower. That doesn’t happen often. Usually, either my husband or my daughter is within shouting distance. But since I was alone, I used more care than normal. I have reached the age where a broken hip from a fall is less than desirable. But it’s difficult to keep my mind in one place, so the next instant my mind flipped over to, “I wonder if you could commit murder by making a shower floor extra slippery and how you could get away with it.” 

My law firm has two offices in two cities. Both offices have break rooms with refrigerators. The unwritten rule is that something in the refrigerator is off limits—inside the refrigerator is where people put their lunches for their exclusive use. However, food left out on the table is free to all comers. Treats like cookies, brownies, leftover birthday cake and cupcakes regularly find their way to the table anonymously. I have long thought that one way to commit murder in a law office would be to slip a few poisoned goodies among the tempting treats. No one would know how they got there or who put them there, and no one would think to question how they ended up on the table before eating them. 

Another time, a case was being mediated. (A mediation is a formal, but non-binding settlement conference between two or more sides with a person trained to be a go-between.) The person mediating told me about the case, a terrible civil lawsuit involving the death of an infant. The mediator, who was borrowing our office, had put the two sides as far away from each other in our office as she could to minimize the chances of either side running into the other. My mind started spinning again—how could someone murder either the defendant or the plaintiff at the mediation, who would be the least obvious perpetrator out of all the people present in the office that day, and could you craft a believable story out of it. 

What unusual murder methods have you contemplated while planning your mysteries?