Jennie Marts, author of Kill or Bee Killed, the latest novel in the Bee Keeping mysteries series, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today.

Welcome, Jennie.

Tell us about your novel. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too.

Kill or Bee Killed is the second book in the Bee Keeping mystery series. The series follows Bailey Briggs, a single mom and mystery writer, as she and her daughter return to her hometown of Humble Hills, Colorado and to Honeybuzz Mountain Ranch where she was raised by her bee-keeping grandmother, Granny Bee, her great aunts, Marigold and Aster, and her grandmother’s book club and posse, lovingly referred to as The Hive. In Take the Honey and Run, the first book, the mayor of the town is murdered, and the murder weapon turns out to be Granny Bee’s infamous ‘Honey, I’m Home Hot Spiced Honey’, making Bailey’s grandmother the prime suspect. So, of course, Bailey, her best-friend, and the members of The Hive set out to find the true culprit. Except the town sheriff turns out to be Bailey’s first love, and even though they haven’t seen each other since high school, their romance is still buzzing. And the sheriff isn’t too excited about Bailey snooping around his case. Bailey has no choice but to use her fictional detective skills to help solve the murder and “smoke out” the real culprit before her beloved grandmother ends up bee-hind bars.

In Kill or Bee Killed, Humble Hills is abuzz with excitement over the upcoming annual Bee Festival, sponsored by Granny Bee and the Honeybuzz Mountain Ranch. The long weekend of festivities includes a beauty pageant, beekeeping demonstrations, a local restaurant bake-off, and a 3K Bear Run where all the participants are dressed as bears. The bake-off brings in a television crew from California to film, so it’s the most drama-filled part of the weekend, especially when the famous celebrity host winds up dead.

Because the celebrity was holding her bracelet and had been witnessed having an altercation with Bailey’s best friend Evie shortly before his death, everyone suspects Evie of the murder—and Bailey is quickly on the hunt for clues to clear Evie’s name, alongside Granny Bee and her bunch of geriatric misfit friends. Bailey’s potential new honey, Sheriff Sawyer Dunn, is none too pleased to have Bailey buzzing around the investigation, but Bailey’s determined to uncover the truth, rescue her grannie’s beloved Bee Festival, and save her bestie.

They say you get more flies with honey, but in this case, more honey may mean you end up dead. And a little competition never hurt anyone—unless it ends up killing you.

Where did the idea for the mystery that is central to the story come from?

I really wanted to set this mystery during a local bee festival and bring in more of the community of Humble Hills. I thought it would be so fun to incorporate in a beauty competition and thought it would be a hoot to have the great aunts (who are in their seventies) be forced to enter. My husband started an annual 3K Bear Run in our town where all the runners wear these funny bear suits, and I knew I had to put that in the book too. I’m a huge fan of the Great British Bake-off, and Bailey’s best friend, Evie and her grandmother, Rosa, run a bakery/coffeehouse called Spill the Beans, so I came up with the idea to add a cooking competition into the festival and have the celebrity host be the one who gets ‘offed’.

Even though the celebrity host gets murdered, it’s still a really fun story, and Bailey and Evie get up to even more crazy shenanigans than they did in the first book.

Is there a theme or subject that underlies the story? If so, what prompted you to write about it?

I treasure the relationships with my family and my female friends and really try to convey the importance of having those women in my life and how important family and friends are. I love the relationships between Bailey and her daughter, her grandmother, her great aunts, and her best friends. Not all the relationships are good, because both Bailey’s mother and father abandoned her when she was young, so she was raised by her grandmother, but I love showing that ‘family’ can be relatives and also ‘found’ through good friends and a supportive community.

How do you create your characters? Do you have favourite ones? If so, why are you partial to them?

My characters come to life in many different ways. Sometimes they just come to me, other times, they might be based on someone I know or who I’ve met. Or they might be a mash-up of several different people. I was very close to both of my grandmothers, and I love writing spunky old ladies as characters in my books who often portray some of the personality traits of both of my grandmothers. It’s a fun way for me to pay tribute to these two amazing women in my life. I have written over thirty-five books but will admit that several of my main female protagonists have a few of my characteristics—most of them are tall and curvy and several of them adore Cheetos, peanut butter cups, and macaroni and cheese. All my books have dogs in them, and most of the dog characters come from my own fur-babies, like the golden retriever in this series who is named Cooper just like mine, and the dog on the front cover looks just like my Cooper. And it’s kind of a fun thing that Bailey’s best friend, Evie, is inspired by a real friend of mine named Evie, who is exactly like the character in the book, and I can absolutely see the two of us getting into trouble like Bailey and Evie do.

How do you bring to life the place you are writing about?

I love small towns and am from a small town myself, so it’s easy for me to picture the small mountain town of Humble Hills. I really try to add in the details of the town, not just what the buildings look like, but the view of the mountains in the background, the smell of pies and coffee wafting from the local bakery, and the dishes of water that the business owners leave outside their doors for the dogs of the town. I know so many people like the ones in the communities I write about and really try to bring in the feel of small-town life where most people know each other or have a connection through school, church, or friends or relatives. Folks in small towns truly do reach out to help each other, and I like showing that sense of community in my stories.  

What research do you do to provide background information to help you write the novel?

I typically do research as a scene or section of the book demands it. For instance, I did a deeper dive into facts about killer bees when I wrote about Granny Bee presenting a program on them. Speaking of bees, I have done a ton of research on bees and honey, and I’m fortunate to live with a certified beekeeper. For years, my husband ran two nature centers, and one had an observation beehive exhibit in it showing live bees in their habitat, so I get a lot of my bee information from him and from learning about the workings and habitats of bees. He also started an actual Bear Run, like the one in the book, where participants do a 3K run wearing bear costumes. It’s a hoot, and everyone has so much fun. I also love putting honey-inspired recipes in my book, so I research and experiment with making the recipes as well.  

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

Just that I had a blast writing this one, and I hope they love meeting the characters and the community of Humble Hills. I want readers to feel like visiting Bailey and Granny Bee and the Hive is like visiting old friends and want them to feel part of the love and friendship these women have for each other. I hope readers fall in love with the handsome sheriff, Sawyer Dunn, who was Bailey’s first love, but I also want them to love Leon, the kooky coroner, and swoon over Mateo, Evie’s hunky brother, and Spike, the burly biker bar owner who has a heart of gold and makes cupcakes with his grandma.

I hope this book makes them laugh a lot, cry a little, and salivate over the delicious honey-inspired recipes in Kill or Bee Killed.

Thanks for hosting me and my book.

You’re welcome, Jennie, and good luck with Kill or Bee Killed, the latest book in the Bee Keeping mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Jennie Marts by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Instagram and Goodreads pages. You can also follow her on Twitter/X.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

 Amazon    Barnes & Noble   Apple    Kobo  Audible

About Jennie Marts: Jennie is the USA TODAY Best-selling author of award-winning books filled with love, laughter, and always a happily ever after. Readers call her books “laugh out loud” funny and the “perfect mix of romance, humor, and steam.” Fic Central claimed one of her books was “the most fun I’ve had reading in years.”

She is living her own happily ever after in the mountains of Colorado with her husband, two dogs, and a parakeet who loves to tweet to the oldies. She’s addicted to Diet Coke, adores Cheetos, has never missed an episode of Survivor, and believes you can’t have too many books, shoes, or friends.

Her books include the following small town romance series: Cowboys of Creedence,  Creedence Horse Rescue Series, Lassiter Ranch, Hearts of Montana, the Bannister Brothers (hockey romcom), Cotton Creek , and two hilarious cozy mysteries series, The Page Turners and The Bee Keeping Mysteries.