M. J. Evans, author of Fire at the Track, a Harness Racing mystery, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today.

Welcome, M. J.

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

Fire at the Track is the first book in my Harness Racing Mystery series, set at the fictional Liberty Racetrack in Ashville, Pennsylvania. My protagonist, Callie Oaks, is a former insurance investigator who goes undercover as an exercise driver named Haylie Norr to find out who set a fire that killed twenty-eight horses — and quickly realizes the person responsible is still on the grounds. Along the way, she has to earn the trust of a backstretch community that doesn’t open up easily to outsiders, all while a local reporter named Paul Coffman keeps turning up in her barn aisle asking questions and becoming more than a friend.

The series continues with Murder in the Winner’s Circle, which finds Callie investigating a poisoning at an owner’s birthday celebration that turns out to be tangled up in a gold mine embezzlement scheme, and a third book is already taking shape. Each book stands on its own, but readers who stick with Callie will watch her relationships — with the horses, with Paul, and with the track itself — deepen from one book to the next.

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

From a stranger on an airplane, of all things. I’m the sort of person who talks to whoever ends up in the seat next to me, and on one flight, I got seated next to a woman who was even more talkative than I am. When she found out I wrote novels about horses, she sat straight up and said she knew exactly what I needed to write about next. She told me about a real barn fire at a harness racing track in Pennsylvania in 2001 — the cause was never officially determined, though the backstretch gossip at the time centered on a horse that had gone lame and could no longer race. The moment I got home, I looked it up, and every fact she’d given me checked out. That was all it took. The story started writing itself before my plane had even reached the gate.

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

Trust, and how slowly and specifically it’s earned. Callie isn’t a horsewoman playing investigator — she’s an investigator who has to prove herself in a world that runs on very small, very deliberate acts of trust: showing up before dawn, handling a lead rope correctly, letting a nervous horse decide whether to lean into your shoulder or away from it. I wanted to explore how an entire community can close ranks around its own, for better and worse, and what it costs an outsider to be let in. That idea felt especially true to life, having spent so many years around barns myself — the horse world really does run on trust earned in small increments, not grand gestures.

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

I usually start with a role a character needs to serve in the plot, and then I spend time figuring out what would make that person believable in this particular world — what they’d have had to give up, or fight for, to belong there. Stanley Smithfield, the veteran trainer and driver who takes Callie under his wing without fully realizing who she is, became one of my favorites almost by accident. He started as a supporting character and grew into someone I looked forward to writing every time he walked into a scene. I also have a soft spot for Sunny, the filly Callie is assigned to train. Sunny doesn’t trust Callie right away, and watching that relationship build, one grooming session at a time, ended up mirroring the larger mystery in ways I didn’t fully plan when I started.

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

Research and repetition, mostly. I wanted Liberty Racetrack to feel lived-in rather than decorative, so I paid close attention to sensory detail — the fog over the track at dawn, the particular hush of a barn settling in for the night, the look of a horse’s lateral gait, which doesn’t look quite natural to anyone who hasn’t watched it a hundred times. I also leaned on my own decades of hands-on horse experience for anything related to horsemanship and barn life, since that’s the part of the world I know in my bones. For everything specific to harness racing, I had to build that same familiarity from scratch through research and conversations with people who’d spent their working lives at the track.

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

A great deal, since harness racing was new territory for me even after a lifetime around horses. I bought and annotated several books on the sport, including Born to Trot by Marguerite Henry, a biography of the standardbred Somebeachsomewhere by Marjorie Simmins, and a biography of the great standardbred Greyhound by Cheryl Eriksen. But books can only take you so far, so I also turned to people who’d actually lived that world. Richard Stone, who spent his entire working life on harness racing breeding and training farms, was generous enough to read every page of my manuscript and correct the places where I’d gotten the details wrong. Between the reading and Richard’s patient corrections, I hope I’ve done the sport justice — for the newcomers and the lifelong harness racing fans alike.

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

Just that I hope readers come for the mystery and stay for the horses. I wanted Fire at the Track to work for anyone who loves a good whodunit, but I also wanted it to be a genuine window into a world that doesn’t get much attention in fiction — one I’ve come to love a great deal myself over the course of writing this series. If you finish the book wanting to learn more about harness racing, or find yourself looking up your nearest track, I’ll consider that mission accomplished.

Thank you for answering my questions, M. J., and good luck with Fire at the Track, a Harness Racing mystery.

Readers can learn more about M. J. Evans by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads, and BookBub pages.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

Amazon   Barnes and Noble

About M. J. Evans: M.J. Evans is the award-winning author of twenty six published works spanning middle-grade, young adult, and adult fiction, as well as a selection of picture  books. Her writing often explores themes centered around horses and equine fantasy, reflecting a lifelong passion for these remarkable animals. A graduate of Oregon State University and a former educator with experience teaching both middle and high school students, Ms. Evans brings both educational insight and storytelling flair to her work. She resides in beautiful Colorado with her husband, Tom, where they enjoy the company of their horses and Standard Poodle. She is the proud mother of five and grandmother of thirteen.

M.J. Evans was the recipient of the 2024 Colorado Authors League Lifetime Achievement Award.

Literary awards include: Chanticleer International  Book Awards Readers’ Favorite International Awards Eric Hoffer Awards Nautilus Awards Literary Classics awards Literary Global Book Awards Feathered Quill Book Awards Purple Dragonfly Awards Royal Dragonfly Awards Page Turner Award Next Generation Award Global Book Awards CIPA Evvy Book Awards Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards Incipere Book Awards International Impact Book Awards Maincrest Media Book Awards Book Excellence Awards Mom’s Choice Awards.