Special Guest – Historical Mystery Author, Clara McKenna
Today we welcome a very special guest to the blog – our friend and fellow Iowa author Clara Mckenna who is has a fantastic release coming out later this month, Murder at Glenloch Hill. More about that later.
First, we had some questions for Clara about her writing journey, her process, and more.
Before we get started with our questions, tell our readers a little about yourself. Maybe start with where you live, where you’re from, what you do beside writing, etc. Whatever you’d like to share.
I live in a Victorian farmhouse on the outskirts of Ames, Iowa, though I grew up in Upstate New York. I’m passionate about travel, which I do both for fun and to research my books (Why else would I set one of my series in the UK?). I love to hike, whether in a local park or in the Highlands of Scotland. Since there aren’t any tearooms nearby, I also enjoy hosting afternoon tea at home, using my ever-growing collection of vintage teacups, which I use daily and are not just for display.
And now to the questions.
What started you on your writing journey?
I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. I like to say I started with handmade greeting cards when I was four. I would always include original prose or a verse inside. I eventually graduated to poems, short stories, even a historical play when I was 12. I continued to write poetry throughout high school and college, having a few published in my college literary magazine. But it wasn’t until I’d changed careers twice as an adult, did I finally write a novel. And that, A Lack of Temperance, was my first published book.
What do you write? And why did you choose that genre or sub-genre?
I write what I like to call historical cozy mysteries. I have two series, the Hattie Davish Mysteries that follows a late 19th century American secretary who solves crime in every historic town she visits and the Stella & Lyndy Mystery series about an unlikely duo who mix love, murder, and horseracing in Edwardian England.
I chose the historical mystery sub-genre because I wanted to combine my love of mysteries with my passion for history. If I’m going to spend my whole day writing something, I want to love it as much as I hope my readers do.
What’s your favorite part of writing?
My favorite part of writing comes when I’m completely immersed in the story. Often, I’ll be so engrossed in the writing that I lose complete track of time, space, everything. I’m in the world I’ve created and when the words are flowing, there’s nothing like it. And since my mysteries are set in the early days of the 20th century, for me, it’s the closest I’ll ever get to a time machine.
And what’s your least favorite part of writing?
My least favorite part is the time required for me to write a book start to finish. It takes me a month to plot my books, two months to write a very rough draft, six months to edit my rough draft and two months to polish everything up. I’d love to write two books a year but until I figure out a way to edit faster (I’m looking at you, synonyms), I’ll only be able to publish one book a year.
How much do you plan before you start a book?
Since I write historical novels, and because my publishing editor requires that I submit an outline for his approval, I have quite a bit to do before I can start. My planning process has two aspects – an outline and historical research.
I start by creating a detailed scene-by-scene outline, which includes all the necessary plot elements like clues and red herrings. I then research the historical context – the topic, setting, and anything else that comes up from my outline. This ensures my plot is historically accurate and appropriate. Based on my research, I then adjust my outline as needed.
That being said, in the world of plotter versus pantser, I’m a “plantser.” I plot extensively upfront but remain flexible as I continue to research and write.
Where do your very best ideas come from?
My best ideas always come from when I visit the location of the book. When I do a site visit, I not only take in the sights, sounds and smells of a place, I do extensive research in local libraries, museum, and archives. Every time I come away with an array of plot elements, characters, and detail that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. Who knew the New Forest had its own resident “snake catcher?”
What part of writing is the most difficult for you to write? Characters? Conflict? Emotion? Something else?
This may sound funny, but I struggle with writing humor. If I try to intentionally include humor, it always backfires and falls flat. Instead, I just write and hope it emerges organically in the right places at the right time.
And also smell – I never think to include it. Might have something to do with my poor sense of smell? I don’t know, but I always have to intentionally add it at the end.
What’s next? Tell us about your next book and when it will be published.
Thanks for asking! My next book is MURDER AT GLENLOCH HILL, the 6th in the Stella & Lyndy Mystery series. It releases on November 26, 2024. Stella and Lyndy take a weekend trip to Scotland to visit her distant kin’s country estate and, as the blurb on the back of the book says, “learn how sinister bad sportsmanship can be when a prestigious golf tournament becomes a deadly game of murder…” Sounds pretty good, don’t you think?
We think so! Thanks for stopping by, Clara. We’ve already pre-ordered our copies and can’t wait to read more of Stella & Lyndy’s story.
For a complete list of Clara’s books, visit her website at: www.claramckenna.com
And to connect with her, you can find you on Facebook, Instagram, and BookBub with the following links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/claramckennawriter
What do trolls have to do with writing suspects and antagonists in mysteries?
I first learned of Thomas Dambo’s work when I saw a news story about him and his art installations made of recycled materials. He’s considered the world’s leading recycling artist with his work appearing throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. His more than 125 larger-than-life trolls were created to share his environmental message throughout the world in outdoor installations that use trash to create art within nature.
Six of Dambo’s trolls took up residence within the gardens, trees, and wooded areas of the Cheekwood Estate & Gardens in Nashville during this past spring and summer. I was lucky enough to have the chance to visit with them. They’ve since moved on to spend time at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach, VA through Jan 20, 2025. If you have a chance to visit with them, tell them I said hi.
Also, the best villains or antagonists are multi-layered. If they weren’t, they’d be caricatures rather than characters, and no author should be writing Snidely Whiplash-type cardboard villains. That’s why it’s so important to spend as much time developing the goals, motivations, and conflicts of our suspects in our mysteries as we do our protagonists.
By Donnell Ann Bell
In my upcoming release, Luckless Love, my heroine is returning from a year long road trip and searching for someplace to belong. Wanting to belong to a community is a universal theme that I think appeals to readers, but when I started to write the book, I didn’t immediately leap to that theme. I had to explain my reasoning for using it to my co-writer—Juel Lugo.
Bethany Maines is the award-winning author of action-adventure and fantasy tales that focus on women who know when to apply lipstick and when to apply a foot to someone’s hind end. She participates in many activities including swearing, karate, art, and yelling at the news. She can usually be found chasing after her daughter, or glued to the computer working on her next novel (or screenplay). You can also catch up with her on 
One, they’re married. And two, the award-winning books they write include a few murder victims along the way. 
His latest, The Kingdom of Hatch, features a disillusioned attorney who flees the craziness of Manhattan for the peace of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont only to find trouble in paradise. Hilarity ensues.
We attend conferences together. We do appearances and book talks together. 
By Lois Winston
I don’t know how I didn’t know about this series of books, but I’m so happy I stumbled upon them. Mrs. Polifax is a New Jersey widow who walks into the CIA one day and offers her services as a spy. Surprisingly, they take her up on it! And that’s the start of a very entertaining book featuring an extremely endearing character. The author wrote fourteen books in the Mrs. Polifax series before her death at the age of eighty-eight in 2012. I’ve already started the second one.
If a book doesn’t draw me in by the third chapter, I won’t waste any more time on it. There are too many books to read and not enough leisure hours in my day. Even so, there are books I finish but soon forget. Then there’s The Dutch House. I first picked this book up because it takes place in a town where I went to college and later lived for several decades. But I kept reading because the author is so adept at crafting both characters and plot.
I bought this book several years ago but just got around to reading it this summer. At 880 pages, it’s quite intimidating and requires a huge commitment of time. Because I don’t care for horror stories, I’d never read anything by King other than his book on writing. However, I’m old enough to remember the day Kennedy was shot, and the concept about a man who goes back in time to prevent the assassination fascinated me. I flew through it, unable to put the book down until my eyelids grew heavy each night.
Disclaimer: the author is a dear friend, and I was lucky enough to read this book prior to publication. Daisy Harriman, one of the main characters in the book, was a real person. When she requested a room for the night at the Waldorf Hotel, she was turned away because she wasn’t accompanied by her husband. Appalled by her treatment, she set out to change history, creating The Colony Club, the first woman’s club of its kind in not only New York but the world. The novel also incorporates other historical people of the Gilded Age, including Stanford White, who designed the building, and actress-turned-interior designer Elsie de Wolfe, who decorated the Colony Club’s rooms. The author is a meticulous historian who creates a richly accurate depiction of the times, especially in the treated of women, making the book extremely au courant for today’s readers.
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Next from Winona Kent…
A New Beginning that Feels Like Groundhog Day by Debra H. Goldstein