An Interview With Connie Berry

by Grace Topping

Many of you know Connie Berry as a blogger on Writers Who Kill and Miss Demeanors. Today, she is switching it up a bit and appearing as a guest author on WWK to discuss her Kate Hamilton Mystery series. The first in the series, A Dream of Death, came out in April. The second book, A Legacy of Murder, was released just days ago.

A Legacy of Murder

It's Christmastime and antiques dealer Kate Hamilton is off to visit her daughter, Christine, in the quaint English village of Long Barston. Christine and her boyfriend, Tristan, work at stately-but-crumbling Finchley Hall. Touring the Elizabethan house and grounds, Kate is intrigued by the docent's tales of the Finchley Hoard, and the strange deaths surrounding the renowned treasure trove. But next to a small lake, Kate spies the body of a young woman, killed by a garden spade.

Nearly blind Lady Barbara, who lives at Finchley with her loyal butler, Mugg, persuades Kate to take over the murdered woman's work. Kate finds that a Burmese ruby has vanished from the legendary Blood-Red Ring, replaced by a lesser garnet. Were the theft and the woman's death connected?

Kate learns that Lady Barbara's son fled to Venezuela years before, suspected of murdering another young woman. The murder weapon belonged to an old gardener, who becomes the leading suspect. But is Lady Barbara's son back to kill again? When another body is found, the clues point toward Christine. It's up to Kate to clear her daughter's name in Connie Berry's second Kate Hamilton mystery, a treasure for fans of traditional British mysteries.

Welcome, Connie.

Hello, Grace. Thank you for welcoming me to this side of Writers Who Kill.

Fiction writers are advised to create a memorable setting with not only the details about a place but also the way the characters experience it, making setting a character. Your descriptions of Scotland in A Dream of Death and England in A Legacy of Murder are appealing, and Kate's feelings about the places come through vividly. How did you get that sense of place?

I think one of the reasons people love books set in a foreign land is the opportunity to "travel" there without actually leaving home. Anyway, that's why I adore books set in the UK. The job of the author, I believe, is to evoke the setting as vividly and as accurately as possible. For me, that means actually being there. I've spent a lot of time in the UK, first as a student at Oxford University, and since then as a frequent visitor. My husband and I travel to the UK once or twice a year. Scotland is a favorite place for me because my grandparents were born there. I feel a connection to the people, the history, and the land. The fictional isle of Glenroth (the setting for A Dream of Death) is located just south of Skye in the Inner Hebrides—a magical location. I love the smell of the sea and the peat fires, the way the mist settles on the rocky peaks, and the ever-present roar of the wind. Kate's sense of the island's history and the sensory details she notices are partly determined by the memories of her husband's death, which may account for what some have termed a "Gothic" feel. 

Suffolk, the setting for A Legacy of Murder, is well off the tourist track but endlessly fascinating for me because of its ancient Roman and Anglo-Saxon history. England's past is never more than an inch or two below the surface, but this is especially true in Suffolk. My husband and I like to stay in self-catering cottages and soak in the atmosphere—the impossibly quaint villages; the medieval buildings; the hedgerows, thick with holly and berries; the silly pheasants who stroll the narrow lanes as if automobiles had never been invented. A reader in Ithaca, New York, recently told me that when she reads my books, it's almost like being there. I take that as a great compliment.

You set A Dream of Death in Scotland but moved A Legacy of Murder to Suffolk, England. Why the change in setting?

Scotland was never intended to be a permanent setting for the series. I wanted Kate, an American antiques dealer, and Tom Mallory, an English detective inspector, to meet in a place where they were both outsiders, thrown together by circumstances. Tom trusts his instincts as a police professional, but in Scotland, he also learns to value Kate's perceptions—especially her ability to notice details and see patterns. For Kate, Scotland holds memories of her husband's tragic death, so leaving Glenroth behind is emblematic of her growth as a character. Besides, I pretty much killed off or otherwise disposed of most of the characters on Glenroth. The second book, A Legacy of Murder, is set in the fictional Suffolk village of Long Barston—on Tom's patch—where the story will remain for a while.

Kate is an experienced antiques dealer who has a sixth sense about antiques. Please tell us about that.

Having grown up in the high-end antiques trade, I know that a love for the objects of the past is partly emotional. My mother was a meticulous researcher and documenter, but my father was a romantic. He was raised by his Scottish grandparents, caretakers on the Rockefeller summer estate in Lakewood, New Jersey. As a child, my father was so impressed with the fine art and antiques in the mansion—especially the "Chinese Room"—that he developed a lifelong passion for antiques. He was also an electronics engineer and inventor. How these disparate skills came together, I can't explain, but (like Kate) I would call him an antiques whisperer.

Kate's relationship with her daughter, Christine, is a bit rocky. What accounts for that?

Having sons, I've never experienced the emotional turmoil that can arise between a mother and a daughter. My first son was colicky as an infant, however, which provides some of Kate's memories of Christine's challenging babyhood. As women, they have very different personalities. Kate is logical and mostly even-tempered (or likes to think she is), while Christine is passionate, impulsive, even reckless, approaching life with the abandon of a runaway freight train. The more Kate tries to spare her daughter angst, the more Christine resists her interference. If you've raised teenagers, you probably know what I mean. 

Their greatest conflict, though, comes from their very different responses to loss. Three years earlier, Kate lost her husband. At the same time, Christine lost her father—at almost exactly the same age Kate was when she lost her own father. While Kate deals with grief and loss by guarding her heart, Christine deals with it by replaying what she processed as abandonment over and over again in her love life. I must say, Kate is better at diagnosing Christine's issues than her own. Like most of us.

Kate's relationship with Inspector Tom Mallory is fraught with complications. Why?

After her husband's untimely death, Kate effectively shut herself off from the possibility of a new relationship. Letting Tom into her heart is a huge step, one she initially resists. Besides, Tom is British; Kate is American. His life and responsibilities are in Suffolk. Hers are in Ohio. How could a romance work out in practical terms? And then there's Tom's mother—the one who doesn't like Americans. In A Legacy of Murder, Kate learns that the complications of an intercontinental romance aren't the worst things she and Tom will have to face.

Is there anything in your first book or your series you wish you had done differently?

Started writing sooner? Most authors my age have a long backlist. My first book took a long time to complete because there was so much I had to learn. Even with an MA in English Literature and having read literally thousands of mysteries, I didn't know what I didn't know. If I could do it over again, I'd start writing in my twenties (easy to say now, right?).

A number of authors are writing more than one series. Have you given any thought to another series?

I have. In fact, I have an idea for a second series—and a cool pseudonym, should that become necessary. How writing two series would work out time-wise, I have no idea. Some authors can juggle multiple series simultaneously. That really impresses me.

With two books being published in one year, how has it been balancing writing and promotion?

First, you have to learn to write. Then you have to learn to be an author. Right now I'm in the process of learning how to be an author. After lecturing for twenty-five years, public speaking isn't a problem (and I'm never at a loss for words J). But the organizational part of juggling promotion with writing hasn't come easily for me. All I can say is, I'm learning.

An audio version of A Dream of Death has been produced. Were you involved in the process? Are there plans for an audio version of A Legacy of Murder?

I was involved in a limited way. The producer, Dreamscapes, gave me a couple of audition tapes to listen to and approve. I'm an audiobook addict, and having listened to a number of books with both American and British characters, I know how hard it is to get both right. The Scottish accent is especially difficult. Like most languages, accents vary widely from Dumfries to Glasgow and from Edinburgh to the Highlands. Even though I grew up with the Scots' accent in my ear, I absolutely cannot reproduce it. Ruth Uruquart, the narrator of A Dream of Death, is Scottish, so she obviously nails the voices on the Isle of Glenroth. And I think she does a good job with the English and American accents as well. I’m waiting to hear about an audiobook for A Legacy of Murder.

What's next for Kate Hamilton?

Right now I'm working on Book Three, tentatively entitled A Pattern of Betrayal. Kate is back in Long Barston for the summer, running a dear friend's antiquities business while he recuperates from bilateral hip surgery. When a local recluse consigns a valuable, ancient Chinese vase, Kate is thrilled. The commission will put the shop's shaky cash flow back on an even keel. But when the vase goes missing and a dead body is found in the stockroom, Kate finds herself on the trail of a missing daughter, a ruthless killer, an ancient legend, and a decades-old pattern of betrayal.

Thank you, Connie.

Learn more about Connie Berry and her books at www.connieberry.com and on Facebook.

Novels...and Other Lies

by Connie Berry

I've always been a story-teller. A good thing, right?

Well, not when you're a child and the stories you tell are actually fibs (lies, if you insist on accuracy). I loved making things up—not to get out of trouble or cover some misdeed, but to get a little excitement going, to embellish the truth just enough to make the story wonderful. 

In department stores, I would slip away from my mother so I could tell a friendly sales clerk I was lost. This created loads of excitement and fun things like dramatic announcements over the loud speaker. And sometimes candy. Frequently when my mother's friends would gather for a coffee morning (women did stuff like that then), I would announce she had a baby in her tummy. She didn't, but wouldn't it have been wonderful?

I told my Sunday School teacher once that my father had broken his leg that morning. When the story made it around to my grandmother, who had her whole Bible class praying for him, I knew I was in trouble.

Another time I insisted I'd seen a tiny elf-like man peek out of a miniature door hidden in the base of a tree near my house. I wrote a story about that one, which my parents must have considered a step in the right direction.

To encourage me toward truthfulness, my mother bought me a
book, The Most Wonderful Doll in the World by Phyllis McGinley. The story is about Dulcy, a little girl whose memory of a lost doll becomes more wonderful and exaggerated each time she tells about it. Like me, Dulcy was a child with a run-away imagination and a nature that found it "hard to be satisfied with Things As They Are." My mother was right. I was always wondering "what would happen if…?" Adding in a few extra details made Things As They Are so much more interesting.

Now I'm all grown up. I know the difference between telling lies and creating fiction. But the love of stories has never left me. In fact, possessing an over-active imagination is an asset to a writer. I can make up as many tales as I like, and asking "what would happen if…" leads to some great plot twists. One of the things I love best about writing mystery stories is the freedom to create new worlds, populated by interesting characters in unusual settings who find themselves facing unlikely situations. 

We make it all up and call it a novel.

Are you a storyteller? What aspects of your childhood predisposed you to reading or writing fiction?

           

An Interview With Connie Berry

by Grace Topping

One of the joys of writing a book is creating an engaging story that incorporates things the author loves or finds interesting. Connie Berry, in her debut novel, A Dream of Death, wrote an intriguing mystery; set it in a place she loves, the British Isles; worked in her family’s background in antiques; tucked in some history; and created interesting characters. For Connie, it was a joy to write, and for readers, the promise of a very entertaining read. 

A Dream of Death

Jacket copy

Autumn has come and gone on Scotland’s Isle of Glenroth, and the islanders gather for the Tartan Ball, the annual end-of-tourist-season gala. Spirits are high. A recently published novel about island history has brought hordes of tourists to the small Hebridean resort community. On the guest list is American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton. Kate returns reluctantly to the island where her husband died, determined to repair her relationship with his sister, proprietor of the island’s luxe country house hotel, famous for its connection with Bonnie Prince Charlie. The next morning a body is found, murdered in a reenactment of an infamous crime described in the novel. The Scottish police discount the historical connection, but when a much-loved local handyman is arrested, Kate teams up with a vacationing detective inspector from Suffolk, England, to unmask a killer determined to rewrite island history–and Kate’s future. 

www.connieberry.com

Welcome, Connie, to Writers Who Kill.

A Dream of Death is your debut novel. What inspired you to write a mystery?

Connie Berry

I've always been fascinated with deciphering clues and figuring out puzzles. Like so many other mystery writers, I began reading the Nancy Drew series and went on to devour the Golden Agers—Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, G. K. Chesterton, Georges Simenon, Cyril Hare, Dorothy L. Sayers. As a child, I wrote my own stories, most of them involving mysteries, puzzles, and unexplained events. Now, as an adult, I appreciate finely drawn characters, intriguing settings, complex plots, and beautiful prose. Mysteries have it all.

Kate Hamilton is an American, but you chose to set A Dream of Death in Scotland, and the sequel in Suffolk, England. Why in Scotland and then the move to England?

Well, there's something about an English village, isn't there—the idyllic façade with a dark underbelly? "One sees so much evil in a village," Miss Marple famously said. I always wanted the series to end up in Suffolk, one of the most historic and least-visited parts of England. I've spent time there, following the many walking paths, exploring impossibly quaint villages, and delving into the area's fascinating Anglo-Saxon and medieval history. My first book, however, is set on a fictional island in the Scottish Hebrides because I wanted my two main characters—Kate, an American antiques dealer, and Tom, an English detective inspector—to meet in a location where they were both outsiders and could team up to solve a crime. Tom obviously has experience with criminal investigation and the instincts of a detective. Kate has a specialized knowledge of antiques and an ability to notice details and discern patterns. The second book builds on this relationship.

Setting a book in another country must require a fair bit of research. What have you been doing to make the settings sound so authentic? 

My paternal grandparents were Scottish, so I grew up with the sounds, tastes, and tales of the "auld country" in my head and heart. Today, research is facilitated by handy online tools such as Google maps and local websites. For information about policing in Scotland, I enlisted the help of a detective inspector from Fort William and the chief of police on the Isle of Skye. There's nothing like actually being there, however. Before sending the manuscript to my publisher, my husband and I spent two weeks tracing Kate's steps from Inverness to Fort William and the famous "Road to the Isles." We took the "roll-on, roll-off" ferry to the Isle of Skye. We talked to people and filled our senses with the incredible beauty of autumn in the Highlands—the brooding lochs, the tall pines, and the mountains, carpeted with golden gorse. I hope my readers will get a sense of that magical area and want to visit for themselves.

Kate runs her own antique business and experiences physical sensations when she handles certain antiques. Tell us about her business in the U. S. and her unique experiences.  

Kate owns a shop, specializing in fine antiques from the 18th and 19th centuries. She grew up in the antiques trade (as I did) and learned all she knows from her parents. Her father teasingly called her a divvy, an antiques whisperer, drawn instinctively to the single treasure in a roomful of junk, able to spot a fake at fifty paces. In the presence of a fine antique, Kate often experiences a vague sense of joy or sadness or fear, as if the emotional atmosphere in which the object existed had crept into the joints and crevices along with the dust and grime. Sometimes these feelings distill into a word or a phrase. Kate dismisses these symptoms, chalking them up to her notoriously over-active imagination and filing them away under the category of Unexplained Things like déjà vu and why men can never find anything in a refrigerator. 

In A Dream of Death, the story centers around the discovery of a diary that is about two hundred years old. Reading the diary entries is like getting two stories in one book. Why the parallel stories? 

As a child, I once asked my mother why we didn't have new furniture like everyone else. "Our things have a history," she said. "So much more interesting." That line made it into the book because it's an idea that has always fueled my imagination. Today, where we live, is only the thin top layer of a deeper history that adds context and meaning to our experience. At least that's how I see it. My series begins with that premise—the layering of past and present. Kate's profession as an antiques dealer reflects it, as do the lives of the characters. In that sense, the diary provides a place for past and present to meet. As Kate reads the diary, the historical murder and the present-day murder entwine, until they meet at the end, and both are solved.

What is your favorite thing about Kate? 

I admire many qualities in Kate—her integrity and sense of justice, her self-deprecation, her sly sense of humor, and her logical mind. But my favorite thing about Kate is her curiosity because it often gets her into trouble.

I’ve read that you should give your main character a flaw. Did you give Kate a flaw? If so, what is it and how is she dealing with it?

Everyone has flaws, and I hope Kate's make her a three-dimensional character, someone you might actually meet. Unexpected losses in Kate's life—the death of her beloved Down Syndrome brother when she was five, the death of her father when she was seventeen, and the premature death of her husband when she was forty-three—have made her self-protective and unwilling to risk her heart again. That becomes a problem when she finds herself attracted to Tom Mallory. When Kate's husband died, there was unresolved conflict between them. Before she can move forward, Kate must face her past.

Kate teams up with Detective Inspector Tom Mallory of the Suffolk Constabulary to solve a murder. What is an inspector with the Suffolk Constabulary doing working on a case in Scotland?

Tom is spending two weeks on the Isle of Glenroth for a much-needed break after a particularly difficult case. While the Suffolk Constabulary and Police Scotland are separate entities, police in both countries work (ostensibly) for the Queen and are technically never off-duty. As a police professional actually on-scene when a murder occurs, Tom assists the local police, whose resources are stretched, on an informal basis. More is involved, as you might imagine, but to find out, you'll have to read the book. 

What is your favorite thing about Tom?

Tom is a serious-minded person by nature, which makes him easy to wind up. Unfortunately, Kate finds this irresistible. Good thing for her, Tom is slow to take offense and intensely loyal. Once he gives his heart, he's a lost man.  

How was your journey to publication? Was it a long journey? What kept you going?

This first book took almost ten years to get into publishable form. I made all the newbie mistakes and had to learn the craft, one painful step at a time. What kept me going was a love for the story, a passion for the written word, and a stubborn unwillingness to give up. What held me back was a near-fatal compulsion to polish and revise words without addressing the underlying structural issues. Once I set my mind to do that, the story came together.

Is there anything you wish you had done differently on the way?

Where do I start? I made all the mistakes. But the one thing I never experienced was writing fatigue. I've loved every minute I spent on this book.

What was the best piece of writing advice you’ve received? And what advice would you give writers just starting out? 

The best piece of advice? That's hard to pin down. So many writers have given me advice and practical help, from wonderful critique partners, to authors of books on craft such as Chris Roerden and Jane Cleland, to other writers generous enough to listen and review my work. Gretchen Archer, author of the Davis Way mysteries, advised me to change my POV from third to first person. When I did that, Kate got her voice. Second, Hank Phillippi Ryan advised me to "take away everything that isn't the book." When I did that, the story came together. I'd give new writers two pieces of advice: learn the craft and persevere.

Writing is such an isolated activity. How do you stay connected to other writers?

Staying connected is easy these days through social media. But real relationships are made face-to-face. I've met many wonderful friends at writing conferences such as Sleuthfest, Crime Bake, Malice Domestic, Bouchercon, and Killer Nashville. I like to attend at least two conferences a year and look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones. I'm a member of Sisters in Crime, both local and national chapters, and Mystery Writers of America. The writing community is incredibly generous. As someone said (wish I could remember who): "You don't have to fail so I can succeed."

What’s next for Kate Hamilton and Detective Inspector Tom Mallory?

Since Kate's daughter is a student at Magdalen College, Oxford, Kate will have further opportunities to spend time with Tom in the UK. In the second book, A Legacy of Murder, Kate travels to Suffolk, Tom's patch, where her daughter has an internship between terms at one of the local stately homes. Trouble, as they say, ensues.

Thank you, Connie.

For more information about Connie Berry, visit her on Facebook and at www.connieberry.com

Coming October 2019

A Legacy of Murder

Book Two in the Kate Hamilton Mystery Series 

What could be lovelier than Christmas in England? American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton arrives in the Suffolk village of Long Barston, dreaming of log fires, steaming wassail, and Tom Mallory, the detective inspector she met during a recent murder investigation in Scotland. Kate also looks forward to spending time with her daughter, Christine, an intern at Finchley Hall, famous for the unearthing in 1818 of a treasure trove known as The Finchley Hoard. But when the body of another intern is found on the estate, romance must take a back seat. Long Barston is on Tom Mallory’s patch, and the clues to the killer’s identity point backward more than four hundred years to a legacy of murder and a blood-red ruby ring.