Edie Brown is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about A Wealth of Deception, the latest novel in the Scandal Mountain Antiques mystery series.

Welcome, Edie. 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.

Hi, my name is Edie Brown and I’m an art and antique dealer and the main character in the Scandal Mountain Antiques Mystery series. At the beginning of the second book in the series, A WEALTH OF DECEPTION (standalone), I’ve been back home for a month. I returned after my mom went to prison for art forgery and am working hard to rebuild my family’s antiques business as well as restore our reputation. At the beginning of the novel, an older woman we know stops at the shop to ask for a favor. A friend of hers is having a yard sale and needs help pricing some items. The friend already asked another antique dealer—our nemesis, Felix Graham—if he’d help her. He said, no. My uncle Tuck and I agreed to do the favor. Nothing would be better than to buy an amazing piece of art or antique at the friend’s house, and then to have Graham find out that he walked away from a good opportunity. What we end up finding at the house is beyond anything I could’ve imagined, and it draws us into a dangerous and high-stakes mystery.

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

It’s all about me. Trish Esden—aka: the author—bases the novels on situations that would challenge me the most, both intellectually and emotionally. A WEALTH OF DECEPTION involves outsider art which truly speaks to my soul.

How did you evolve as the main character?

That’s an ongoing process. I have a lot of baggage, especially where my mom’s concerned. Before I came home I truly believed she was guilty of the art forgery charge. Now I’m beginning to suspect I was too hard on her. More likely someone used her weaknesses to set her up for the fall. Also, in A WEALTH OF DECEPTION, my friends with benefits relationship with Detective Shane Payton hits a major roadblock, one that tests and changes both of us.

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

As far as I’m concerned, I’m not the only main character in the Scandal Mountain Antiques Mystery series. Kala, my one and only employee, is far more than a sidekick. She’s an invaluable member of our team. She’s smart and devious, and brave as they come. There’s also my uncle Tuck. He’s most often the voice of reason in our little group. He’s a combination big brother and best friend to me. He also has more people skills than Kala or me—and his mastery of horticulture is only matched by his ability in the kitchen.  

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

You mean my home? The town of Scandal Mountain is in northwestern Vermont. It’s a good size village nestled into the mountains. My family’s house and shop are on the outskirts of the town. Well, the easiest way to describe it is to let you read a snippet from book 1 in the series, THE ART OF THE DECOY.

“My family’s large brick house sat at the top of the rise. It was built in the 1830s and had changed very little since then. As always, the gardens and lawn took my breath away. Irises and peonies overflowed beds and escaped cages. Ferns, hostas, and wild rose bushes crowded the edges of the lawn. No matter what time of year, the gardens never failed to remind me of Claude Monet’s home in France, a location Grandma and Tuck had intentionally emulated when they’d planned the landscape. But what brought a prickle of tears to my eyes was the familiar sloped panorama of Scandal Mountain Valley, framed by the gardens and hills of lush-green trees.

A heavy sense of being right where I belonged closed in, as welcoming and weighty as the crazy quilt I’d napped under as a child, satin and velvet, embroidered with dates and symbols of past events, torn where time-frayed threads had laid open its cotton heart.

I took a steadying breath, then parked in front of the carriage barn that housed the shop. I retrieved a suitcase from the back. Its wheels clattered as I pulled it up the walkway toward the kitchen door…”

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

Mostly I’d like to thank you for hosting me and being a part of A WEALTH OF DECEPTION’s book birthday tour! It was a lot of fun to share some tidbits about me. But there are plenty more secrets to be revealed in the series, so read the books closely and you might just catch a glimpse of things to come.

Thank you for answering my questions, Edie, and good luck to you and your author, Trish Esden, with A Wealth of Deception, the latest book in the Scandal Mountain Antiques mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Edie and her author, Trish Esden by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Goodreads, Bookbub, and Instagram pages. You can also follow her on Twitter.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

Indiebound – Amazon – Barnes & Noble – Apple Books – Kobo – Bookshop.org

About Trish Esden: Trish loves museums, gardens, wilderness, dogs and birds, in various orders depending on the day. She lives in northern Vermont where she deals antiques with her husband, a profession she’s been involved with since her teens. Don’t ask what her favorite type of antique is. She loves hunting for old bottles and rusty barn junk as much as she enjoys fine art and furnishings. Trish is the author of the Scandal Mountain Antiques Mystery series which explores the secretive and adrenaline-charged underbelly of the antique and art world.