Kassandra Lamb, author of Troubled Water, the first novel in the Aging Ain’t For Wimps mysteries series, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today.

Welcome, Kassandra.

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

My newest release, Troubled Water, is Book 1 in a new series, The Aging Ain’t for Wimps Mysteries. These cozies are about a recently widowed woman, Amy Parker, who is finding herself at the age of seventy-one. As she’s picking up the pieces after her husband’s passing—and sidestepping her domineering sister’s attempts to take over her life—she begins to realize that her husband was subtly controlling.

Oh, and she gets involved in some murders, along the way.

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

While creating my protagonist’s back story, I was looking for a way to explain how an otherwise strong and competent woman (she’s a retired ER nurse) would marry a controlling man, and stay married to him for decades. First, I made her a single mom at age nineteen, after losing her first husband in the Vietnam War. This made Amy susceptible to a man who was good with her son. And then I got the idea to give her a domineering older sister and a late mother who taught her to “go along to get along.” This would have primed her to give in to her second husband’s subtle ways of controlling her.

Then I killed the sister off, thus thrusting Amy into the role of amateur sleuth.

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

There is a theme that underlies the entire series. My generation of women in the U.S. (I’m 73) experienced a rather unique phenomenon. For the first decade of our upbringing we were taught traditional gender roles, and then the women’s liberation movement got rolling. And the messages we were receiving changed from “be nice” and “go along to get along” to “be strong” and “you can do anything.” This was more than a little confusing, and still is sometimes for us. Those two sets of messages do battle inside our heads. I wanted to raise awareness of this struggle while writing an entertaining series.

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

Characters tend to have minds of their own. I may create them initially and have certain ideas about how they should think and act, but then they take over. Sometimes they mostly stick to my game plan, but other times they strike out on their own and develop personality traits I never knew they had.

I do sometimes have favorites. I tend to particularly like the kind men and the feisty women. But I’ve got to admit that the grumpy cat in this series is turning out to be my number one favorite.

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

Setting is important in any fiction story, but especially so in cozies. They’re usually set in small, tight-knit communities. A cozy author can pick a real town as their setting, but I prefer to invent a fictitious one. After all, these are murder mysteries so there are going to be some bad people in this town; I don’t want the residents of a real town to be offended. But I do choose a real town to model mine after. Then I try to add some details, like the local flora, to make the setting seem more realistic.

And I also locate the town between other real places. For example, my fictitious town of Heron Shores is about halfway between Jacksonville, Florida and a small city in northern Florida called Lake City. I make references to people being picked up or taken to the airport in Jacksonville, and also to the real hospital—where Amy worked for thirty some years before retiring—located in Lake City.

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

I had to do a fair amount of research to remind myself of events and dates from the Vietnam War and the women’s liberation movement. That set the stage, but one needs to research a lot of little things along the way as well. I had to check on things like how doctors can tell if someone has had a heart attack and what kind of herbal tea would taste strong enough to disguise the presence of poison. I usually enjoy research, especially since it is relatively easy now with the internet, but if law enforcement ever checks my search history, I’m in big trouble.

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

Just that I had a lot of fun writing this story and Book 2, which I’ve already started. I hope readers have as much fun reading them.

Thank you for answering my questions, Kassandra, and good luck with Troubled Water, the first book in the Aging Ain’t For Wimps mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Kassandra Lamb by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram and BookBub pages. You can also follow her on BlueSky.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

AMAZON    BARNES & NOBLE    KOBO    APPLE   GOOGLE PLAY

About Kassandra Lamb: Kass has two loves: writing and psychology. In her youth, she discovered that writers need day jobs in order to eat. Partial to food, she studied psychology. Now retired from a career as a psychotherapist and college professor, she spends most of her time in an alternate universe with her characters. The magic portal to this universe (i.e., her computer) is in Florida, where her husband and dog catch occasional glimpses of her. Kass has authored over 40  books, including four mystery series and a romantic suspense trilogy.