Susan Boles, author of Secrets Never Lie, the first novel in the Pickwick Bend Murder Club series, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today.
Welcome, Susan.
Tell us about your novel. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too.
Secrets Never Lie is the first book in a new murder club mystery series. It features an ensemble set of characters rather than having one main character. Shelby Rae, Trixie, Janelle and Curtis formed a book club at the local library where they read and discuss new release mystery books and try to guess who the killer is before they finish reading the book.
In this book, a murder takes place in a gated community outside town where homes are mostly summer vacation homes owned by out-of-towners. The book club decides they are the perfect people to solve the murder and set about gathering information and clues.
The closer they get the more they discover that the murder is more home grown than anyone had anticipated and that the past has come home to roost in the present.
The series title is The Pickwick Bend Murder Club.
Where did the idea for the mystery that is central to the story come from?
I live in one of the small towns near Pickwick Lake and have always been interested in history. Since I love the lake, history and a good mystery, it seemed like the trifecta to create a series that incorporates all three in Secrets Never Lie.
Is there a theme or subject that underlies the story? If so, what prompted you to write about it?
The theme in this book is the past and how actions and decisions made not only by ourselves, but by those that came before us can impact our lives in a big way. Having grown up in this area and being a descendant of one of the first families to settle the area, I have quite a bit of experience in knowing what it feels like to live in a place where people know not only who you are but your family for several generations in the past.
How do you create your characters? Do you have favourite ones? If so, why are you partial to them?
My characters tend to be a conglomeration of multiple people I know along with a big dash of total make believe. I love all of my characters for many different reason so I don’t have a favorite. Each character is crafted on a tiny seed of something special about someone I care for in real life.
How do you bring to life the place you are writing about?
I tend to use sensory information to bring my places to life. Like the sunlight glinting on the lake. The sound of cicadas. The scent of honeysuckle. Or the smell of rain coming on the wind. Descriptions of the places in the town that make them more easy to visualize.
What research do you do to provide background information to help you write the novel?
For this one, I didn’t need to do a lot of research as I’m a native of the area and am already familiar with the historical elements and place I write about in the book. For the next book, I did more research as it’s centered on fishing tournaments and lakes and I wasn’t as familiar with how fishing tournaments work.
Thank you for answering my questions, Susan, and good luck with Secrets Never Lie, the first book in the Pickwick Bend Murder Club series.
Readers can learn more about Susan Boles by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram and Pinterest pages. You can also follow her on Threads and Substack.
The novel is available at the following online retailers:
Amazon – B&N – Bookshop.org
About Susan Boles: USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling author Susan Boles writes novels that make each character vivid, while highlighting small-town southern communities where life may be slow but never boring. Whether the novel is a cozy mystery, romance, or romantic suspense, she brings real life to characters and towns alike.
Susan has received multiple awards for her Lily Gayle Lambert cozy mystery series, along with accolades for her romance and romantic suspense novels. When she isn’t writing, Susan enjoys genealogy, reading, gardening, knitting, and crocheting (all the granny hobbies), which she squeezes in whenever possible. Susan, her husband, and their dog, Krissy, live in West Tennessee near the area where Susan’s family settled in the early 1800s.
