Planning a Wedding by Guest Blogger Edith Maxwell

Thanks for inviting me over, Annette and the other Writers Who Kill! I’m delighted to be back.

I am also a writer who kills, of course, although my sleuths or others in town find the already-dead body. But for this post I want to talk about the wedding that anchors the action in Murder in a Cape Cottage, which comes out Tuesday.

Tim Brunelle has been Mac Almeida’s boyfriend for the entire series. He’s been eager to marry and start a family. While Mac is worried about her orderly life being thrown into turmoil, she does love him deeply, and family is important to her. She says yes.

While planning a fictional wedding for book four isn’t as complicated as a real-life one, I had all the same things to think about. When will it be? Where? What are the bride’s colors, who are her attendants, what will guests eat and in what décor? SO many details. My older son was married four years ago, and my younger son will tie the knot in February, so I guess I have weddings on the mind!

I remember when Annette was planning Zoe Chambers’s wedding a few books back. Annette presented dress after dress and quizzed fans on which would be right for Zoe. It was a great promotional scheme, but I didn’t copy it. Here’s a bit from the book describing how Mac found the dress.

With the high metabolism I’d inherited from my tiny dynamo of a grandmother, I still sported a slender figure at thirty-seven. When Gin and my mom and I had started looking for wedding dresses this fall, I’d been worried. I so wasn’t the lace-and-ruffles type, and I also didn’t want some strapless extravaganza.

By some miracle we’d happened across a simple, body-hugging satin dress cut on the bias, and we’d found it right here in Westham at Cape Bridal, a new shop on the outskirts of town. The cream-colored dress—also comfortable, as it turned out—had a flattering scoop neck, pintucked short sleeves, and a short train that could be buttoned up and out of the way for dancing.

I wish I could show you a picture of the dress – except I made it up!

I also had fun thinking of colors – purple and yellow – to accent Mac’s New Year’s Eve wedding. She invites her five-year-old niece Cokey to be flower girl, and Cokey is thrilled. Gin is Mac’s only attendant, for which she wears a purple tea-length sheath dress in a shimmery fabric. Mac’s mom finds a pale yellow dress with a swirly skirt that falls below the knees and a short lace sweater in the same color. After the ceremony at the Unitarian Universalist Church where Mac’s father is the minister, the reception will be at the Westham Hotel, with yellow and purple flowers.

Rosendahl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Also fun was dreaming up the wedding cocktail to be served before the reception. As the series is set on Cape Cod, where cranberries are grown, I wanted it to include cranberry juice. Mac’s grandmother Reba works with her to refine the ingredients. I presented the scene and recipe over at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen earlier this month.

Mac will meet Tim’s parents for the first time the day before the wedding, and you can believe she’s nervous. Mac’s father, brother, and Tim take charge of cooking up a Cape Verdean meal for the rehearsal dinner, and it all turns out fine.

You can be sure this book isn’t only a lovely little tale of the week before the wedding. Being crime fiction, the story must include a big old wrench in the works. In this case, the wrench smacks the reader on the head in the first chapter. Five days before their wedding, Mac and Tim discover a decades-old skeleton in the wall of their house – an imprisoned skeleton wearing a wedding dress.

Readers: What’s your favorite wedding story – success, mishap, or fictional? I’ll send one commenter a signed copy of the new book!

Murder in a Cape Cottage

ʼTis the day after Christmas, following a wicked-busy time of year for Mac’s bike shop. It’s just as well her Cozy Capers Book Group’s new pick is a nerve-soothing coloring book mystery, especially when she has last-minute wedding planning to do. But all pre-wedding jitters fade into the background when Mac and her fiancé, Tim, begin a cottage renovation project and open up a wall to find a skeleton—sitting on a stool, dressed in an old-fashioned bridal gown . . .
 
As Mac delves into the decades-old mystery with the help of librarian Flo and her book group, she discovers a story of star-crossed lovers and feuding families worthy of the bard himself. Yet this tale has a modern-day villain still lurking in Mac’s quaint seaside town, ready to make this a murderous New Year’s Eve.

 

“She’s handcuffed to the wall,” I whispered. “The poor thing. Somebody seriously didn’t want her to get married.” My heart broke for her, but this was also feeling like a horror movie. My own wedding was only days away.

Maddie Day pens the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the new Cece Barton Mysteries. As Agatha Award-winning author Edith Maxwell, she writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. Day/Maxwell lives with her beau and cat Martin north of Boston, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at EdithMaxwell.com, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and on social media:

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Here Comes The Crime - A Mini-Mystery

A few weeks ago I received a rejection in the mail - a very nice rejection. The editor took the time to offer a handwritten note, explaining that she liked the work but couldn't use it because an element of the story did not fit the magazine's criteria.
Because I had written this mini mystery for a very specific market, I can't use it anywhere else, so I thought I'd share it on WWK. Have some fun - see if you can solve the mini mystery!

When a bride’s family heirloom pearl necklace is stolen, Cady Miller, the owner of the Five Golden Rings Inn, must save the wedding day.

Here Comes the Crime

By Shari Randall

I had only ten minutes before the lovely strains of “Here Comes the Bride” turned into police sirens. Before people started talking, texting, and tweeting about the theft at the Five Golden Rings Inn.

My Inn. The Inn I’d worked so hard to transform into the most beautiful bridal venue in the county.

Just an hour earlier, beaming bride Ava Lee and her attendants had swept happily into the Inn’s

dressing room. Mama Lee carried a velvet box with her family’s heirloom pearl necklace. Maid of honor Rosie Lee-Mayhew, Ava’s sister, bustled in and out readying bouquets. Bridesmaid Lucy Masters fixed Ava’s makeup. The room was a whirlwind of lace and flower petals as we prepared for the wedding ceremony in the Rose Garden.

Little Harper Mayhew, the bride’s niece, ran into the room, scattering daisies. “I’m making everything pretty, Miss Cady,” she told me.

“Don’t get your dress dirty playing with Keegan,” Mama Lee warned. Keegan was the bride’s Golden Retriever.

“I’m making Keegan pretty, too,” Harper said.

“A dog in a wedding,” Mama groaned as she adjusted Ava’s hem.

“Very common these days,” I said as I draped Ava’s veil. Ava winked at me over Mama’s head.

“Newfangled weddings,” Mama groused as Harper danced from the room.

Rumor was that Keegan wasn’t the only thing upsetting Mama. Rosie had left her husband, Tim Mayhew, for Jesse Wood. As a teen, Jesse had done time for theft. Now he had a steady job at the auto shop. Still, some people wouldn’t give him a break. Mama was one of those people.

Soon Ava was ready. She opened the jewelry box and gasped.

The box was empty.

“Jesse,” Mama exclaimed. “Once a thief -”

“He’d never,” Rosie shouted.

We searched frantically, but it soon became clear the necklace was gone.

“Maybe you left it upstairs,” I suggested.

Tears welled in Ava’s eyes. “I put the necklace in the box right before Mama carried it down here.”

Who could have taken the necklace? It wasn’t in the room. Someone must have taken it out, and only Rosie, Lucy, and I had left the room on errands.

And who needed money badly enough to steal the necklace?

Lucy had recently opened a yoga studio, so money was tight. Didn’t I know it, running my own business.

That brought me up short. I had just opened the Inn. If the police came, they’d suspect me, too. I felt my stomach clench. This was a disaster.

There was a knock at the door. My assistant, Marlee, peeked in. “Ten minutes to show time,” she said.

I peered over her shoulder. I saw Jesse Wood tugging at the collar of his jacket. Lucy’s husband stood nearby. Either of them could have had the pearls slipped to him by his bridesmaid accomplice.

As Mama, Rosie, and Ava argued, heads started to turn toward the bridal dressing room. I shut the door.

“Your no good boyfriend!” Mama fumed.

“Lucy said she had to get lipstick. We were all so busy dressing Ava. She could have taken the necklace from the room,” Rosie shouted.

Lucy’s eyes widened. “I’d never do that. Ava is my best friend!”

Mama put her hands on her hips. “Rosie, zebras don’t change their stripes. Did Jesse put you up to stealing the necklace? Well, I’m getting it back!” Mama started for the door.

“Ladies.” I blocked Mama’s way. I had to get things under control or this day would be a disaster – for the wedding party and for the Five Golden Rings Inn.

“Let’s start from the beginning. Where were the pearls?” I asked. Ava tearfully pointed at the box on the vanity.

I brushed the box with my hand, then looked closer at something on the lid. I exhaled with relief. “I know who took the necklace.”

Who took the pearls? How does Cady know?

SOLUTION:

Little Harper Mayhew. Cady noticed dog hair clinging to the box and remembered that Harper wanted to “make Keegan pretty.” Cady discovered that Harper had put the pearl necklace on Keegan. After touching up their makeup, the wedding went on. Disaster averted.