A Dash of Death

Posted on February 18, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Samantha Warren is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to tell us about A Dash of Death, the first novel in the Cocktails & Catering mystery series.

Welcome, Samantha. Let’s get started, shall we?

Tell us about the novel that you live inside. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too.

Hi, I’m Samantha Warren, and I live inside A Dash of Death, the first in the Cocktails & Catering Mystery Series. I’m a laid-off journalist who was jilted a few weeks before my wedding. My fiancé ran off to New York City, leaving me with a broken heart and hundreds of bottles of homemade cocktail bitters I made as favors for our wedding guests. My best friend, Marisa, finagled an invitation for me to sell those bitters at the Highlands Historic Association’s Home Tour. Everything was going great until one of the Historic Association’s board members died after drinking one of my cocktails. Now, my reputation is at risk, and I’ve been swept up in a murder investigation. I’m hoping for my happy ending though, and maybe even a new business venture—one where murder isn’t on the menu.

Does the writer control what happens in the story or do you get a say too?

In the beginning, I definitely felt like someone was controlling my story. My life wasn’t exactly ending up as I’d planned. I lost my job, my fiancé, and then got tangled up in a murder investigation. A crisis of confidence in my past had me doubting my instincts and my ability to make decisions without input from my friends and family, so it was much easier for the writer to take control. But I’m working on trusting myself more and taking the lead in some of my decisions. Every once in a while, I assert myself in ways the writer isn’t expecting. It feels good to have more of a say in my future.

How did you evolve as the main character?

I popped into Michelle’s head one day as she was dreaming up a new character for a mystery series she wanted to write. She’s always loved cozy mysteries and was trying to find a unique idea that would fit the genre. If you want to know the truth, I think she drew a little inspiration from her own life. She was once a newspaper reporter, she grew up in Corpus Christi but now lives in Houston, and she enjoys making cocktails and dabbling with bitters and other cocktail syrups. Of course, I’m much better at it than her. I don’t think she has the patience to learn to make bitters, so she imagines what she’d like to make and lets me experiment until I find something interesting. I love Houston just as much as she does. And while my home base is the fictional Highlands community, I love to explore all the places that make the city interesting. As for how I got into investigating, I think it goes back to both of our reporting backgrounds. Michelle and I are a lot alike in that once we dig into something, we want to keep digging until we come up with a conclusion.

Do you have any other characters you like sharing the story with? If so, why are you partial to them?

There are so many fun characters. Of course, I’m partial to Marisa Lopez, my best friend. We became buddies when we worked together at the Houston Gazette, myself as a reporter and her as a photographer. She’s always really supportive, and knows when to call me out on being indecisive. Marisa’s girlfriend, Beth Myerson, is also turning into a pretty good friend. She’s a landscape architect and an amazing chef. We share a passion for cooking and using fresh ingredients to create unusual flavors. I’m blushing a little here, but I might be developing some feelings for my lawyer, David Dwyer. With dark black hair and green eyes, he’s very handsome. Plus, he has such a warm presence and a comforting smile. When I’m around him, my circumstances never seem as bleak as when I’m imagining the possibilities in my head. He’s also got an artistic side, which I find really attractive.

What’s the place like where you find yourself in this story?

Houston is an amazing city. People who have never been here have so many preconceived notions about it. They think of it as one big highway filled with traffic and oil refineries. Don’t get me wrong—you can find both in Houston, but there is so much more here. We’ve got wonderful parks, and amazing art and theatre organizations, not to mention food from all over the world.

I live in the Highlands neighborhood, which is one of the few in the city that still has beautiful historic homes. I live in a garage apartment, but I can still enjoy all the amenities of the community, which is almost like a small town within the larger city. There’s a quaint little Main Street area filled with cute little shops and boutiques. But anywhere in the Highlands, you are still practically within shouting distance of downtown’s skyscrapers.

During this story, I end up travelling frequently to Galveston Island as well. Galveston is the closest beach town to Houston. It’s filled with beautiful historic homes and buildings, and even has the largest concentration of historic Victorian homes in this part of the country.

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

If you enjoy historic homes, custom cocktails and a little side of murder, A Dash of Death is the perfect book for you. Don’t miss the delicious recipes that are included in the back of the book. And stay tuned—my author is hard at work on the next book in the series.

Thank you for answering my questions, Samantha, and good luck to you and your author, Michelle Hillen Klump, with A Dash of Death, the first book in the Cocktails & Catering mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Samantha and her author, Michelle Hillen Klump by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook and Goodreads pages. You can also follow her on Twitter.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

Amazon – PenguinRandomHouse – Barnes & Noble – IndieBound – Kobo

About Michelle Hillen Klump: Michelle is a former newspaper reporter who covered government, courts and crime throughout Arkansas and Central Texas. Still a working journalist, she is also a member of Sisters in Crime. Her short fiction has appeared in Crimson Streets and Tales of Texas, volume 2, a Houston short story anthology.

Posted in Archives, February 2022 | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Secret in the Wall

Posted on February 15, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Ann Parker, author of The Secret in the Wall, a Silver Rush Mystery, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to tell us how she came to include cats in her Silver Rush mysteries.

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

I’ll start right off by noting that I have a long personal history with pets of various sorts, starting when I was a child with dogs and cats, a multitude of pocket pets, chickens and even (once!) a peacock that must have gotten loose from a nearby zoo and spent some months perched on a tree above the creek behind our family house (the zoo, when contacted, didn’t bother to come claim him, so he lingered with us for quite a while). More recently, I have become “servant” to a rescue cat; the #DivaMissMia is featured now and again on my Facebook pages.

However, it was never my intention to include “pets” as such in my Silver Rush historical mysteries. For one, when the series opens, it is 1879 in the silver-rush boomtown of Leadville, Colorado. Leadville is a real place, located deep in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, up at the ten-thousand-foot mark. Winter lasts eight months of the year, and it can snow at any time. Helen Hunt Jackson (author of Ramona) once remarked that Leadville was too unnatural for felines to flourish: “Grass would not grow there and cats could not live.”

But on my visits to the town to do research, I saw cats galore—soaking up the sun on porches in summer and posing in front windows in winter. Clearly, there were plenty of them in present-day Leadville, alive and doing well.

Still, when I began writing SILVER LIES, the first of my Silver Rush historical mysteries, in 1879 Leadville, cats were not part of my plan. I provided my protagonist, Inez Stannert, with a horse, which made sense for the timeframe. I also gave Inez an occupation—saloon-owner. This was an unusual job for a woman, but not unheard of. As I set about creating the saloon through words, something unexpected happened. A calico cat jumped into a scene and curled up on a horsehair couch in the saloon’s office. Inez’s reaction? She waves one hand at the cat and says, “Shoo. Go chase those rats I heard in the storeroom last night. Earn your keep, you lazy thing.”

The cat, instead of doing her bidding, scoots under the couch, tail flicking. (How like a cat!)

This unnamed calico weaves her way through the first five books, and as many at that time and in such places, “earns her keep” by decimating the vermin population. The relationship between Inez and the cat is strictly a business one. (However, cat-lovers, do not despair that the cat was unloved; Inez’s business partner, Abe Jackson, has a soft spot in his heart for the resident feline. The hard-working calico knows she can count on Abe for a tidbit from the kitchen table or a friendly lap to sit on.)

All that changed in the series when Inez departed Leadville for San Francisco, with her ward, twelve-year-old Antonia in tow. Toward the end of the seventh book, MORTAL MUSIC, my very own Mia makes her appearance as a kitten, with tiny claws and long, gray fur. Needless to say, Inez is not happy with this addition to the household. Arrangements are made such that a nearby family friend will “board” the fluffball until she is older and can assume her duties as a household cat.

In THE SECRET IN THE WALL, the number of felines in the series increases yet again…. just like in real life! Early in the book’s development, I offered up a raffle to “name a character ” (as authors sometimes do). The winner, Laurie Pinnell asked if she could name a fictional feline after her own rescued tortoiseshell cat, Eclipse. As the conversation evolved, Laurie noted that she had a second cat, Lucky, who was rescued from under the hood of their car (yep, that’s a lucky cat!). Well, I couldn’t invite one into my fictional universe and not the other, so Eclipse and Lucky did a little time-travelling to 1882 San Francisco, and grew younger in the process. They became the beloved indoor/outdoor pets of Antonia’s young friend, Charlotte. Charlotte’s mother Moira runs a boardinghouse, and the two cats are allowed inside at night to prowl the halls and chase down any bugs or mice that might have slipped inside.

That much of their roles I had decided ahead of time, but as often happens when spinning tales the characters evolved into so much more. They unlock certain clues to the mystery, not through “talking” or being supernaturally intelligent, but just by being, well, cats: curious, sneaky, disobedient, but totally loveable little critters (loveable to those who appreciate felines, that is). In fact, the totally normal, cat-like behavior of one of them (I’ll not say which one) helps “save the day” at the end.

Thank you for telling readers about the cats in the Silver Rush series, Ann, and good luck with The Secret in the Wall, a Silver Rush mystery.

Readers can learn more about Ann Parker by visiting the author’s website and blog, and her Facebook, Goodreads and Pinterest pages.

The novel is available online at the following retailers:

 Amazon – IndieBound – Barnes & Noble – Books-A-Million – Nook – Kobo 

About Ann Parker: Ann is a science writer by day and fiction writer by night. Her award-winning Silver Rush Mysteries series, published by Poisoned Pen Press, a Sourcebooks imprint, is set primarily in 1880s Leadville, Colorado, and more recently in San Francisco, California, the “Paris of the West.” The series was named a Booksellers Favorite by the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association, and Ann is listed in the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame. The Secret in the Wall is the eighth and newest entry in the series.

Posted in Archives, February 2022 | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

A Killer Sundae

Posted on February 11, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Bronwyn Crewse, or Win as her friends call her, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to tell us about A Killer Sundae, the latest novel in the Ice Cream Parlor mystery series.

Welcome, Win. Let’s get started, shall we?

Tell us about the novel that you live inside. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too. Yes! This is part of a series. A KILLER SUNDAE is the third book. The series starts off with A DEADLY INSIDE SCOOP and introduces me, Bronwyn “Win” Crewse, the new manager of her family’s ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. There’s lots of snow, and not so much business, but I try to get the ice cream parlor off to a good start after the remodel. Book 2 in the series is titled, A GAME OF CONES. The series is filled with fun, family and of course, murder!

Does the writer control what happens in the story or do you get a say too? I do control what happens. To be fair, though, my author comes up with the story. But once she winds me up and sets me inside of it, it’s all me.

How did you evolve as the main character? I don’t know that I am. I have been reluctant since the first murder to get involved. My friend Maisie (an ACORN TV nut) is all raring to go. But even after the third murder happened and I solved it (and I was almost killed again) I am no more interested in getting involved since the first murder took place.

Do you have any other characters you like sharing the story with? If so, why are you partial to them? Of course. I couldn’t do what I do without family and friends. But my two best friends, Maisie Solomon and Riya Amacarelli are the one who help me sleuth. My mom, Ailbhe, and my grandfather, PopPop help me out at the shop.

What’s the place like where you find yourself in this story? Most of our time is spent in the ice cream shop, Crewse Creamery. It was newly decorated after I took over. My favorite part is the large picture window at the back of the store that overlooks the falls. Oh. Did I mention? Our ice cream shop sits right at the top of the falls that runs through the center of my little hometown. Rain, shine or snow, we always have the best ice cream. I hope I’ll find you stopping by soon.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell readers about you and the book? It’s a fun whodunit with a little drama, a little humor and a great story about ice cream and murder!

Thank you for answering my questions, Win, and good luck to you and your author, Abby Collette, with A Killer Sundae, the latest book in the Ice Cream Parlor mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Win and her author, Abby Collette by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook and Instagram pages. You can also follow her on Twitter.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

Amazon – B&N – Kobo – Google Play – IndieBound –  Alibris – Penguin Random House

About Abby Collette: Wall Street Journal bestselling author Abby Collette loves a good mystery. She was born and raised in Cleveland, and it’s a mystery even to her why she hasn’t yet moved to a warmer place. As Abby Collette, she is the author of the Ice Cream Parlor mystery series, about a millennial MBA-holding granddaughter running a family-owned ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and the Books & Biscuits mystery series, starring a set of fraternal twins who reunite and open a bookstore and soul food café. Writing as Abby L. Vandiver, she is the author of the Logan Dickerson Mysteries, featuring a second-generation archaeologist and a nonagenarian, as well as the Romaine Wilder Mysteries, pairing an East Texas medical examiner and her feisty, funeral-home-owning auntie as sleuths. Abby spends her time writing, facilitating writing workshops at local libraries and hanging out with her grandchildren, each of whom are her favorite.

Posted in Archives, February 2022 | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

What happens when a parent’s nightmare becomes reality?

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Today Lis Angus is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about Not Your Child, her debut suspense novel.

Welcome, Lis. Let’s get started, shall we?

Tell us about your upcoming novel, Not Your Child—what’s the story about?

It starts out with Susan, a single mother in Ottawa, who learns that a strange man has been following her twelve-year old daughter Maddy. It turns out he’s a danger to Maddy, but not quite the way Susan thinks: he claims that Maddy is actually his granddaughter, who was abducted as a baby. And he wants her back.

Wouldn’t a DNA test quickly settle the question?

That’s what Susan hopes and expects. But they do a DNA test, and it makes the problem worse. It says Susan is not Maddy’s mother. Susan is horrified; she knows that’s wrong, but she can’t explain it.

And then what?

The next thing is that Maddy disappears. Susan is sure the guy has taken her, but he has an alibi and searches of his house turn up nothing. The police launch a search for Maddy and the public is asked to report any sign of her.

That’s every parent’s worst fear—that their child would go missing.

Yes, it is, and the suspense builds from there. Early readers have said the book put them on the edge of their seats, navigating the twists and turns as the story unfolds.

Where did you get the idea for your story?

It’s actually an idea that came to me some years ago, in the form of a “what if” question. What if someone showed up and claimed that your child was in fact not your child?

To make that idea into a story, I had to figure out how such a development might happen: how would the characters react and what could develop from there? I ended up writing from three different points of view, showing events through the eyes of the three key characters.

This is your first published novel, I believe. You’ve already had two careers, first working with children and families in crisis, and then a career in business. How did you come to write a novel?

I’ve been writing all my life, and I always dreamed of writing a novel, but I hadn’t written any fiction since I was a teenager. My writing as an adult was primarily non-fiction, business-related. Later I took some fiction writing courses, but I hadn’t really worked at it. Then in 2017 I heard about NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. I said to myself, “if not now, when?” I decided to grab that impulse, not let the moment pass me by. So I buckled down and finished a first draft that November.

And the book is being published in April 2022. That’s four and a half years between first draft and publication—did that seem like a long time to you?

It did, and at the same time it didn’t. It turned out I had a lot to learn about writing a novel. I did a total of six rewrites before finally receiving an offer from The Wild Rose Press last summer.  The actual process of working with the publisher has moved quite quickly since then: less than a year from contract to publication, which is quick for the traditional publishing world.

Are you working on another novel now?

I am, and it started with another “what if” question. What if you learned that your deceased father had another family—and that your family is the second one, secret from the first?

Oh my. When do you expect to finish it?

I’ve written a first draft already, but it’s still sketchy. I want to take the time I need to round out the characters and do justice to the story.

I’ll be reporting on my progress in my free monthly newsletter, and I have a bonus download for subscribers—including “outtakes” from Not Your Child: scenes that didn’t make it into the final version but give a flavour of the characters and story. To register, go to https://lisangus.com/sign-up.

When and where can readers buy Not Your Child?

It’ll be released on April 18, but it’s available worldwide for presale now. Amazon has a special presale price for the Kindle version, but it’ll be available as a paperback as well. There are other vendors carrying it too; I have a “universal book link” that shows several: https://books2read.com/notyourchild. And I encourage readers to ask their local library or bookstore to stock the book.

Thanks for answering my questions, Lis, and good luck with your debut novel, Not Your Child.

Readers can learn more about Lis and her writing by visiting her website.

The novel is available at many online retailers.

About Lis Angus: Lis is a Canadian suspense writer. She has always loved reading and writing; by the time she was six, she often sat at the kitchen table writing stories while her mom cooked supper. At age nine, she spent a summer writing a novel in her cousin’s hayloft. In her early career she worked with children and families in crisis. In her later career she was a respected telecommunications consultant and policy advisor, conference organizer, business writer and editor. She’s a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, Crime Writers of Canada, and Capital Crime Writers, and is an active participant in the North Grenville Writers Circle. She lives south of Ottawa with her husband.

Posted in Archives, February 2022 | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Twist and Shout Murder

Posted on February 3, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Dot Morgan is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to tell us about The Twist and Shout Murder, in the Swinging Sixties mystery series.

Welcome, Dot. Let’s get started, shall we?

Tell us about the novel that you live inside. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too.

My name is Dot Morgan, and I would love to tell you about Camden, Texas in the year 1962. Even though we’re a small town, we’re pretty modern. It’s not the 50s anymore. I ‘m studying at Hudson Secretarial School hoping to enter the world of business someday. Secretarial school can be challenging mostly because shorthand is a real bear. Wouldn’t it be great if somebody invented something to take down people’s words more efficiently than having to learn hieroglyphics?

It’s summertime in Texas and one storm on the horizon is a hotly debated political contest between my father and the brother of our local D.A., Morton Manning. A seat on our city council has opened after Phil Boggs choked on a chicken bone. As a court clerk, my father has spent years helping others. Morton Manning’s brother, Anson, is well known around town as a rich boy who is having problems settling into a career, so naturally politics is the most obvious answer for him.

Does the writer control what happens in the story, or do you get a say too?

Sometimes I’m not sure if there is any control at all when I end up in dangerous situations.

How did you evolve as the main character?

Reviewers have told me I grow quite a bit. I look like Sandra Dee with a blond ponytail. My author says a modern version of me would be similar to Amanda Seyfried. In the beginning of my story, I don’t argue with my elders. In secretarial school, Miss Robinson is a heartless dictator, but I wouldn’t even think of telling her off. If I want to get my degree, I need to put up with her bossiness. You see, in 1962, as a woman your choices are to be a secretary, a nurse, a teacher or a wife and mother. Just between you and me, I feel like I want a little more. I’m proud of my actions during the book although sometimes I was scared to death. John F. Kennedy, our president, says, ” There is, in addition to a courage with which men die; a courage by which men must live.” Isn’t that great? I’m sure he meant to say “women” must have courage to live, too.

Do you have any other characters you like sharing the story with? If so, why are you partial to them?

A small town is really a big family of people. I share much of my adventure with my landlady, Arlene Clark. I live upstairs in her house with my cousin Ellie. Speaking of Cousin Ellie, she owns the Bluebonnet Dress Shop and has been dating her boyfriend for over five years. I thought they’d be married by now.

Mom works at the library and as you already know, dad works at the courthouse. He is a clerk there. Finally, and I don’t know if I should mention him, but I started becoming friends with Ben Dalton from the Camden Courier. He’s awfully handsome and seems to want to know all about the election. Not only does he cover the election, but we discover a body together.

What’s the place like where you find yourself in this story?

I enjoy being close to Dallas, but not too close. Sometimes we get visits from people like Lady Bird Johnson and her daughter Lucy. Camden is the perfect place to be. I know my readers are living in an entirely different time, so let me tell you a little about our society where I live. Men wear ties to work and some still wear fedoras, a leftover fashion from the 50s. Women mostly wear dresses, although, I have to tell you some hemlines have been going up a bit lately. I wonder where that will go. We have a new restaurant named McDonald’s where you can get a hamburger for $0.35 in an instant.

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

This is my first adventure in The Swinging Sixties Mystery Series. In your bustling world, sometimes it’s better to turn back the page and visit a quieter time. Kennedy is in the White House, which comforts me that nothing bad will happen. Come join me in The Twist and Shout Murder.

Thank you for answering my questions, Dot, and good luck to you and your author, Teresa Trent, with The Twist and Shout Murder, in the Swinging Sixties mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Dot and her author, Teresa Trent by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Goodreads and Instagram pages. You can also follow her on Twitter.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

 Amazon – B&N – Kobo 

About Teresa Trent: Teresa writes historical mysteries, cozy mysteries, romance, and short stories. She lives in South Texas with her husband and son with Down syndrome and splits her time between writing and caretaking.

Posted in Archives, February 2022 | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

Fancy a Murder Mystery Cruise?

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Amber Royer, author of Out of Temper, a Bean to Bar Mystery, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to tell us how her experiences lecturing on cruise ships has contributed to her latest novel.

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

Have you ever tried to get a live plant on board a cruise ship?  It isn’t easy.  Even though I was an enrichment speaker aboard the ship specifically there to talk about growing and cooking with herbs, I would invariably wind up pulled aside, having to explain this to three different people, who would then have to call someone before being allowed to bring my little flat of greenery on board.  But once on board, the herbs were always conversation starters.  Ship staff wanted to tell me what various herbs were called in their hometowns, and how specific plants were used locally for both food and medicine.  Other folks just wanted to know what I was doing, and often showed up later at my presentations.  It was about making connections.

As a writer, it’s no different.  I write something attention grabbing, and I hope readers will connect with it, the way people on the cruise ship connected with a sprig of rosemary, or tiny sprouts of basil.

It’s been a long time since I was an enrichment lecturer on a cruise ship, but the experience was invaluable in making me the writer I am today.  A lot of the themes, and the wanderlust my characters experience, come from me having visited ports of call.  So it seems only fitting that I finally wrote a book set on a cruise ship. 

In Out of Temper, my chocolate maker protagonist Felicity is invited to do chocolate making demos aboard a cruise ship.  This combines several of my own personal experiences.  I did a chocolate tasting class for the ships I was privileged to lecture aboard.  And I’ve also taken a hands-on chocolate making class, and seen tabletop scale chocolate making equipment in action through the Dallas Chocolate Festival.

I tend to write what I call “kitchen sink” books, where I take a lot of things I like or am interested in and put them together in the same piece of writing and see how things come together.  Another thing I know a lot about is the writing scene, and how conferences and conventions work.  I’ve volunteered at conferences, and done some conference planning, as well as speaking on panels and such, so I know how the behind-the-scenes element functions.  It seemed obvious to make the cruise in this book a theme cruise.  In fact, it is a murder mystery cruise, which includes a number of writers as speakers.  (I should note, these writers aren’t based on anyone in particular and are individuals created to fill specific roles in the plot, in order to push Felicity’s best friend, who mysteriously quit writing after much success, to confront her past and face change.)

Writing about such familiar settings and backdrops made Out of Temper in some ways easy to write.  But I felt like I was able to push the characters more, possibly because I was in such comfortable territory myself.  Felicity has to come to terms with the fact that she’s now in a love triangle, when her greatest fear is hurting people.  Autumn has to deal with her past.  Ash finds out he’s adopted.  Drake realizes he hardly knows Autumn, though he has proposed to her.  These were the things I was focusing on as I wrote.

So much about this book feels like things coming full circle, with Felicity’s pastry chef making basil brownies that Felicity brings aboard the ship.  I hope the journey shows in the finished book, and that you enjoy Out of Temper.

Thank you for giving readers an insight into the inspiration behind your writing, Amber, and good luck with Out of Temper, a Bean to Bar mystery.

Readers can learn more about Amber Royer by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads and Youtube pages. You can also follow her on Twitter.

The novel is available online at the following retailers:

Amazon  – Barnes and Noble  – Kobo  – Apple Books

About Amber Royer: Amber writes the CHOCOVERSE comic telenovela-style foodie-inspired space opera series, and the BEAN TO BAR MYSTERIES. She is also the author of STORY LIKE A JOURNALIST: A WORKBOOK FOR NOVELISTS, which boils down her writing knowledge into an actionable plan involving over 100 worksheets to build a comprehensive story plan for your novel. She blogs about creative writing techniques and all things chocolate at www.amberroyer.com. She also teaches creative writing and is an author coach. If you are very nice to her, she might make you cupcakes.  Chocolate cupcakes, of course.

Posted in February 2022 | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Frozen in Motion

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Lori Roberts Herbst, author of Frozen in Motion, a Callie Cassidy Mystery, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to tell us about creating her characters.

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

I gave birth last year.

I am fifty-nine years old, yet I produced not one, not two, but over two dozen human beings—not to mention a dog and a cat. Oh, and an entire village…

The extended labor was intensive and, from my perspective, the births were nothing short of miraculous. As Athena sprang forth in full armor from Zeus’ head, the people of my clan clawed their way from my mind and onto the computer screen, emerging as adults who had gestated in the womb of my brain for many months.

Some of these “children” are older than I am. Some of them are more fully developed than their counterparts. Some are more difficult to love than their siblings. And spoiler alert: some have already passed through my world and departed.

This is what it’s like to be a cozy mystery writer.

A friend asked me recently how it felt to create characters. Do I feel as if I know them? she asked. Are they based on real people?

I admit I had given little thought to the process until she posed the question. Like a toddler standing wide-eyed next to a spilled glass of milk, it just happened. Characters who hadn’t existed before were suddenly alive in my imagination, taking shape and adding layers of flesh and personality with each passing day.

I focused on them a lot—still do. When I go to bed at night, they sometimes keep me awake with their conversations, their problems, their dreams. As I drive to the store, they confide their deepest desires. It’s akin to dissociative disorder, I suspect, except that I am never overtaken by them. They are with me, but they are not me.

And that brings me to the second question: Are your characters based on real people?

To a degree, I suppose they must be. How could I create human beings, even fictional ones, without knowing and internalizing human qualities from people I know in the real world?

Callie Cassidy, the protagonist of my current series, shares a few traits with her creator. Her idealism sometimes results in despair, and she occasionally grapples with impatience (all right, more than occasionally). Sometimes when Callie speaks (especially when she is being sarcastic), I hear my voice. But the similarities between us are less obvious than the differences. Callie proceeds more boldly than I do, and she takes risks I would never even consider. She is as unique as each of my real-life daughters; like them, she may have initially learned how to look at the world at my knee, but now she thinks independently and makes her own decisions.

Maggie, Callie’s mother, is about the same age as my mother was when she died, so it is understandable that traces of Mom’s quirkiness bubble into Maggie’s psyche. When Butch, Callie’s father, runs outside in the freezing winter weather to warm up her car, it’s something my father would have done. And the gentle good-naturedness and smoldering good looks attributed to Sam, Callie’s on-again-off-again (then on-again) boyfriend, obviously evolve from my own handsome, long-suffering husband. 

So the short answer is this: if I am acquainted with you, part of you either has or will someday worm its way into one of my characters. Whether that should serve as a source of anticipation or apprehension, I leave to you.

As characters incubate in my imagination, I try to remember Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote, “There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.” I hope you’ll come to experience my Rock Creek Village children as I do: a group of flawed individuals who are trying the best way they know to wrest a modicum of happiness out of life.

Some of them just find more socially acceptable—and legal—ways of doing so than others.

I can’t wait for you to meet them.

Thank you for giving readers an insight into how your characters develop, Lori, and good luck with Frozen in Motion, a Callie Cassidy mystery.

Readers can learn more about Lori Roberts Herbst by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Goodreads and Bookbub pages.

The novel is available online at Amazon.

About Lori Roberts Herbst: Lori is the author of the Callie Cassidy Mystery series. Her debut novel, Suitable for Framing, won first place in the Murder and Mayhem category at the 2020 Chanticleer International Book Awards. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and serves as secretary of the North Dallas chapter. She is also a member of the national Guppy chapter and Mystery Writers of America. A former educator, Lori spent much of her life writing, editing, and psychoanalyzing. Through thirty years of teaching journalism, advising newspaper and yearbook staffs, instructing budding photographers, and counseling teenagers, she still managed to hang on to a modicum of sanity. Then she retired and assumed her third career: author.

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Ice Cold Murder

Posted on January 25, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Today Charlie Kingsley is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about Ice Cold Murder, the latest novels in the Charlie Kingsley and Secrets of Redemption mystery series.

Welcome, Charlie. Let’s get started, shall we?

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

Thanks for asking. I’m actually in two different series: The Secrets of Redemption (the original) and The Charlie Kingsley Mysteries (the spin-off). Yes, before you ask, I’m Charlie.

The original series was more of a psychological suspense (although it’s clean, like a cozy). It takes place in Redemption, Wisconsin, which is a small town with a haunted past. I’m actually dead when you first meet me, but I didn’t let that stop me. Becca, my niece, is the main character in the first three books, and I talk to her in her dreams.

Michele finally figured it out, and in Book 4, she let me tell my story of how I came to Redemption. Of course, that morphed into two books (I have a lot to say). And once I got going, Michele wasn’t able to stop me, so now, I have my own cozy mystery series, which take place in the 1990s in Redemption.

Does Michele control what happens in the story, or do you get a say?

Do you even need to ask?

How did you evolve as the main character?

Well, it wasn’t easy. For a long time, I didn’t even have a name, and then, Michele gave me the wrong name (“Lottie” … ugh). But we finally got that sorted out. Overall, it was quite the process, and it took more time than it should have (in my humble opinion).

Do you have any other characters you like sharing the story with? If so, why are you partial to them?

Pat, of course. She’s one of my best friends and my sidekick when it comes to solving mysteries. Claire is another one of my best friends—she struggles a little more than Pat as she deals with family issues and being a new mom. In fact, we dive into Claire’s dysfunctional family in Ice Cold Murder.

What’s the setting of this story?

I find myself trapped in a house that is supposedly haunted with eight other people (Claire’s family). It’s in the middle of winter, and we’re snowed in. Needless to say, a lot can go wrong in a situation like that … including murder.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?

While there is a touch of the supernatural in both The Secrets of Redemption and The Charlie Kingsley Mysteries, neither should be considered paranormal. Everything has a logical explanation … even the hauntings and ghosts.

Thank you for answering my questions, Charlie, and good luck to you and your author, Michele Pariza Wacek, with Ice Cold Murder, the latest book in the Charlie Kingsley mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Charlie and her author, Michele Pariza Wacek by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages. You can also follow her on Twitter.

The novel is available online at  Amazon

About Michele Pariza Wacek: When Michele was 3 years old, she taught herself to read because she wanted to write stories so badly. It took some time (and some detours) but she does spend much of her time writing stories now. Mystery stories to be exact, ranging from psychological thrillers to cozies, with a dash of romance and supernatural thrown into the mix. If that wasn’t enough, she also hosts a virtual book club you can check out and join (for free!) at MPWNovels.com.

Michele holds a double major in English and Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently, she lives in the mountains of Prescott, Arizona with her husband Paul and southern squirrel hunter Cassie.

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French Ghost

Posted on January 18, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Today Corinne LaBalme is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about French Ghost, her first novel in Paris Ghost Writer Mystery series.

Welcome, Corinne. Let’s get started, shall we?

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

French Ghost is the first book in a trilogy. With a contract to pen a reputation-restoring memoir for a nasty French movie star, American Melody Layne relocates to Paris. Before the interviews begins, the star drowns (accidentally or not?) and things only get weirder when the actor’s estranged son, Carlos Ortega, asks Melody to write a feel-good bio about  the father he clearly despised.  In French Toast (first draft completed), Melody works on a cookbook-memoir for a celebrity chef whose restaurant gets sabotaged; Book 3, French Poster Girl brings Melody into the dark digital world of high-end influencers.  

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

The first author I ever met was Harriet S. Adams (pen name Carolyn Keene), the grandmother of my best high-school friend.  I eventually got a degree in French literature but Proust and Flaubert have had less influence on my writing than the Nancy Drew books. I don’t think I’m capable of writing a book (or a laundry list) without a mystery theme.  

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

“Lies and the liars who tell them” is the major theme. The book’s moody and mysterious Spanish lust interest, Carlos Ortega, has a tortured relationship with the truth despite his noble intentions. Straight-shooter Melody has little patience for alternative facts. How will that work out?

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

Melody and her BFF, food-blogger Jenna Bardet, are both offshoots of my Paris journalism career. However, I am awfully partial to Charlene Trent, the booze-challenged, silicon-enhanced starlet who Melody meets at the Cannes Film Festival. Charlene’s a mash-up of all the dissipated Z-list actresses that one reads about in celeb mags at the hair salon. Charlene’s a perfectionist: she practices her wardrobe malfunctions.   

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

Paris is where I live but during lockdown, I used this book to ‘virtually’ revisit so many French towns that I’ve written about for magazines: Bordeaux, Vichy, Rouen, Dijon… I missed them!

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

I love research, but books 1 and 2 of this trilogy treat facets of French life – food, fashion, cinema — that I know quite well. However, for Book 3, I am definitely all over the internet  map trying to figure out what makes an influencer hot. 

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

French Ghost is all about having a laugh and a little escape. It’s no more serious than a glass of chilled Chablis in a Paris bistro or a cup of tea by the fireside

PS: I love your site and just subscribed!  

Thanks Corinne, and thanks for answering my questions. Good luck with French Ghost, the first book in Paris Ghost Writer series.

Readers can learn more about Corinne and her writing by visiting her website and her Instagram page. You can also find her on Twitter.

The novel is available online at Amazon.

About Corinne LaBalme: My first jobs after college (incredibly useful art history degree) were in the New York fashion industry (modeling, working for designers). When I gave up on my Greenwich Village walk-up (after realizing that I couldn’t bear to smoosh the cockroaches in my shower because they were a ‘family’), I cut out to Paris where I became Fashion Editor for the English language magazine PASSION.

I subsequently wrote and edited the gourmet destination guide LA BELLE FRANCE for fifteen years while freelancing for the NEW YORK TIMES Travel section, various in-flight magazines, and guide books (GAULT MILLAU, VIRGIN, ZAGAT). From 2011 – 2012, I wrote screenplays for the PBS travel series CUISINE CULTURE.

The cinema figures in FRENCH GHOST are loosely based on stars I’ve interviewed (and been groped by); the restaurateurs in Book 2 (FRENCH TOAST) are drawn from the lovely, often impractical, chefs I met through LA BELLE FRANCE.

I suspect that Book 3 will toss Melody Layne into the cut-throat Paris fashion scene. May the Gods of Ghosting have mercy on her soul…

Posted in Archives, January 2022 | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Daunting Darkness & Freaky Familiars

Posted on January 11, 2022 by Dianne Ascroft

Today Lily Luchesi, author of Daunting Darkness & Freaky Familiars, is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about how she created her Paige Papillon mystery series.

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

In this day and age of self-publishing and small press, more and more books than ever are being released to the public. It’s a wondrous time for writers and bibliophiles alike. Unfortunately for writers, it brings about an unprecedented issue: what are we going to write about that hasn’t been done a million times before?

This was something I pondered when starting the Paige Papillon Paranormal Mysteries. Cozies MUST have a specific formula in order to work: quirky main character, likable best friend, a unique congregating area, no on-screen death, usually a handsome guy shows up somewhere, and law enforcement who doesn’t like the MC. An animal companion helps, too.

Well, plots are always reused. That’s a given. But no one, and I mean no one, wants to read or write about the same characters doing the same things, just with different names or appearances.

Recently, I was reading a book (names will not be named) where the main character was ripped right from a very popular movie franchise. Except for some physical factors, it’s a character I have seen at least a dozen times with a different face in both literature and film. I mention film because so many books become movies these days, it just seems right to include them.

Let me start on my other books, where I had the opportunity to really overdo character tropes. My book series, The Paranormal Detectives, could have truly been a cliche. Mortal cop, female vampire who can kick ass, love story background. It sounds awful when put that way, doesn’t it? I know it brings a sour taste to my mouth.

Just like writing that formula I mentioned above for Paige bothered the heck out of me.

More than a writer, I’m a reader. So when I wrote my first series, I sat down during my second draft of book one and removed every single common trope there was. Do you know what I found? I made a flat as heck book. I realized that sometimes character tropes aren’t just tropes. Sometimes, they’re a necessary plot device. So I went back and took my female lead, Angelica Cross, and took a good look at her. She’s exactly what I wanted her to be: a tough Goth girl who loves black lipstick and equally black leather. She can wield a sword against the best swordsmen of history, outshoot any sniper, and best Jet Li in combat (I am not bragging, and you’ll see why in the next few sentences). She differs from a typical character in a vampire novel because of one reason: she can be bested. She can be beaten and would have been many times in the stories I already published had she not done two things: worked hard to make herself stronger and had backup.

We’ve all seen the kick butt vampire chick who is invincible, and I bet you’re as sick of them as I am. Angelica isn’t one of them. And she is precisely what I talk about when I say some tropes are necessary, but they are malleable. Every good story uses a common character trope (Prince Charming, the kind old person, damsel in distress, the genius, the misunderstood villain, et cetera). Yes, all of them. But the best of the best also change those characters; they bend, twist, and deface a trope until it is nearly unrecognizable.

Because who doesn’t love a dashing leading man? Or a good villain with a tragic backstory? Or even a leather-clad vampire assassin? Or in Paige’s case, a cute little amateur detective. Every author worth their salt can take a trope and make it their own.

Some tropes should be avoided at all costs, such as damsels in distress. I like to think that most readers are sick of the women needing to be rescued. I know I am. So should the extremely archaic idea of a POC as a bad guy or just a sidekick. Certain tropes have to go, and they have to go for a great reason: we have evolved beyond them.

We will never evolve beyond a Lord Voldemort, a Count Dracula, a Prince Charming, or a Katniss Everdeen. Those are the types of characters we’ve grown up with, the kind we love or love to hate. They make a new story feel as warm and comfortable for our brain as a hot cup of tea and blanket does for the body on a winter night. Good versus evil, love and hate, darkness and light. Just as those plot basics are essential for most stories, so are the characters that go along with them.

So crafting Paige’s story, I realized I needed those tropes. I needed the formula, but who said I couldn’t be like a mad scientist and mix that formula with some cyanide?

Paige is a POC autistic Goth girl who uses her disability to help solve crimes. Her BFF is a POC lesbian who may or may not be inhuman. She has mentors who remind me of Gomez and Morticia, rather than the kindly older woman who gives cookies and advice.

The gathering place is a metaphysical new age shop called The Enchanted Elder.

And the handsome guy? Paige is asexual. So the relationship will develop slowly over the 5 planned books in the series.

Readers who read genre fiction love what they love. God knows I do. And I want to give it to them. I want them to feel like they have a warm blanket and have just arrived home when they crack open Daunting Darkness.

But I want the kids like me, the Goths, the outcasts, the LGBT+, the neurodiverse, to also find something they love in a genre that has excluded them for over a century. Books are amazing. Paige is amazing (yeah, I’m bragging here). I wanted her to be more than the typical cozy detective, and yet I wanted her to be able to easily sit at a table with Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher, and all those classic greats we’ve come to know and love.

I hope I succeeded.

Thank you for sharing this with us, Lily, and good luck with Daunting Darkness & Freaky Familiars, the latest books in the Paige Papillon mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Lily Luchesi by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Instagram, and Bookbub pages. You can also follow her on her newsletter and Twitter.

The books are available at the following online retailers:

Daunting Darkness – Amazon Freaky Familiars –  https://amzn.to/3JLnZy6

About Lily Luchesi: Lily is the author of the bestselling and award-winning Paranormal Detectives Series. She grew up in Chicago and now resides in Los Angeles, where she writes horror and erotica stories in between going to concerts and comic book signings. She loves vampires, classic horror, metal and rock music, anime, Supernatural, and the color black.

She has also written short stories in the anthologies Naughty Bedtime Stories: In Three Words, Death Love Lust, and Lurking In The Shadows.

Posted in Archives, January 2022 | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments