Today Emma Starrs is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about How to Book a Murder, the first novel in the Starlit Bookshop mystery series.

Welcome, Emma. Let’s get started, shall we?

Tell us about the novel that you live inside. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too.

It’s nice to meet you. My name is Emma Starrs, from How to Book a Murder, the first book in the Starlit Bookshop Mystery series. The novel is about what happens when I try to help save the family bookstore and end up taking on the role of amateur sleuth. The series is set in a quirky and charming bookstore in the quirky and charming town of Silvercrest, Colorado.

Does the writer control what happens in the story or do you get a say too?

She’s the one who gets things moving, but I’ve surprised her during the writing by going in directions she didn’t expect!

How did you evolve as the main character?

As the first book developed, so too did the complexity of my situation: I love my work as bookseller for which I agreed to plan literary events, but I am also writing a mystery and hoping to teach classes at the local college one day like my aunt does. Coming home has brought up numerous issues from the past. Suffice it to say that I’m juggling a lot, on multiple levels, and changing as a result.

Do you have any other characters you like sharing the story with? If so, why are you partial to them?

My sister Lucy and my aunt Nora are my nearest and dearest—we have a lot of fun together and are super close. And everyone in Silvercrest is lovely. For the most part. Except for the insufferable Tabitha Louise Saxton Lyme Harmon Gladstone Baxter and her clique.

What’s the place like where you find yourself in this story?

The story opens in a store full of wonderful books, which is dotted with inviting reading chairs and watched over by a cat named Anne Shirley.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell readers about you and the book?

We hope you’ll consider visiting Starlit Bookshop soon!

Thank you for answering my questions, Emma, and good luck to you and your author, Cynthia Kuhn, with How to Book a Murder, the latest book in the Starlit Bookshop mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Emma and her author, Cynthia Kuhn by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Goodreads, and Bookbub pages. You can also follow her on Twitter and sign up for her newsletter.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

Amazon – B&N – Kobo – Google Play – IndieBound – Bookshop 

About Cynthia Kuhn: Cynthia Kuhn is an English professor and author of the Starlit Bookshop Mysteries and the Lila Maclean Academic Mysteries. Her work has also appeared in Mystery Most Edible, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Copper Nickel, Prick of the Spindle, Mama PhD, and other publications. Honors include an Agatha Award, a William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant, and Lefty Award nominations. Originally from upstate New York, she lives in Colorado with her family.