Darlene Dziomba, author of Assault & Gobblery, a Lily Dreyfus mystery, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to share how she has used some of her personal experiences in the series.

Welcome, Darlene. I’ll turn the floor over to you –

When I began the Lily Dreyfus series, I had four ideas for stories. I had not fully fleshed out the minutiae of each plot, but I knew I could write four books.

In crafting each book in the series, I have brought in knowledge from all areas of my life. The idea for the series stemmed from my volunteer work at the Animal Welfare Association in Voorhees, NJ. During assignments, I would interact with staff and learn about their jobs and backgrounds, as well as the operations behind the kennels.

While Lily Dreyfus typically deals with cats and dogs as the adoption coordinator at a no-kill animal shelter, In Assault & Gobblery she is asked to solve a fowl problem. A wild turkey lives in the woods that surround a community garden. Some of the gardeners see him as a natural addition to their space. Others threaten to call animal control and have him euthanized.

As an animal lover, Lily is horrified at the thought of euthanizing an animal. She jumps in to resolve the fowl problem before there is any loss of life.

Unfortunately, before Lily can save the turkey, there is the loss of a human life. Her friend, Kelly, is suspected of murder when a body is found in her garden plot with her hori hori knife sticking out of its chest. Never one to shy away from a difficult assignment, Lily digs into the lives of the other gardeners to shovel up the truth.

My mom and I belong to the Horticultural Society of South Jersey and have acquired a vast knowledge of plants, chemical ratios in soil, and proper plant placement. I have been able to weave the information I learned through this organization throughout the plots of the books in the series, but I truly relished the idea of setting a book amid gardens and gardeners.

From the incredibly organized website designer who gardens to have fresh food, to the botany professor who treats her plot as a piece of research, the gardeners in Assault & Gobblery are as diverse as the plants they tend. Lily must determine which of them work in harmony, and what is rotten under the soil.

Characters in a mystery series are like plants in the garden. Sometimes they are vibrant. Other times, they might disappear, or be dormant. In Clues From The Canines a state trooper named Officer Honeycutt helps Lily track and point to the killer. My dad liked the character of Officer Honeycutt.  When I asked what he thought of the second book, Up Close And Pawsonal, he responded, “There isn’t enough of Honeycutt in it.” I think Dad will enjoy Assault And Gobblery. Officer Honeycutt appears to add a dash of humor with each vine that Lily has to untangle.

One of the things that makes the Lily Dreyfus series unique is that the canine characters have as much personality as the human ones. From Boone, the curmudgeonly beagle basset hound mix, to Nero, the over-enthusiastic Newfoundland, the behaviors of the dogs add a dose of humor to each plot. In every book, the dogs always manage to sniff out clues.

It has been interesting to work my personal experiences into the plots of murder mysteries. I am grateful that I have more ideas for this slate of characters.

Thank you for sharing this with us, Darlene, and good luck with Assault & Gobblery, the latest book in the Lily Dreyfus mystery series. Readers can learn more about Darlene Dziomba by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages. Readers can also follow her on Bluesky: @readdarlene.bsky.social.

The book is available online at Amazon.

About Darlene Dziomba: Darlene combined her passion for the written word and animals into the Lily Dreyfus series. The books are written based on her experience as a volunteer at the Animal Welfare Association, a no-kill animal shelter in Voorhees, New Jersey. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, the Membership Chair for SinC Grand Canyon Writers, and served as a mentor in the Sisters in Crime Mentorship program. Darlene lives in New Jersey with her four-legged best friend, Billie.