Tag Archive for: cozy writers

Interview with Cozy Author, Rose Kerr

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By Lynn McPherson

I met Rose Kerr earlier this year at Malice Domestic. We had a few good chats over some delicious cake and I’m delighted to have her here today to talk about her great new book, Death on the Set. It’s the first book in the Brenna Flynn Mystery Series, recently published by Touchpoint Press.

Rose, can you tell us about your debut novel, Death on the Set?

Brenna Flynn is my protagonist in Death on the Set. Brenna’s had some bad luck. Her husband was killed in a highway accident, and then she loses her job as a high school guidance counselor due to budget cuts.

She returns home to Bayview City and works with a temp agency to find work until she can get work as a high school guidance counselor. 

Brenna interviews for the job of a production assistant for a cooking reality show and aces the interview. On the second day at work, she finds a body. The police think she may have something to do with the murder and she’s their prime suspect.

Determined to prove her innocence, Brenna uses the skills she’s honed as a high school guidance counselor to learn about the victim and members of the cast and crew. The stakes are raised with threatening notes, poisonings, and blackmail.

Can Brenna uncover who the killer is before someone else dies?

The story is so much fun. Where do you get your book ideas?

I had a lot of fun writing this book! For Death on the Set, my son and I were watching a cooking reality show and the head chef (who shall remain nameless) was especially nasty to the contestants. I looked at my son and said, one day someone is going to kill him. My son said, Mom, there’s your story. It took a while to get that story out, but it was fun writing it. The other two books in the series came from ideas that had been in my mind for some time.

Why did you choose a former guidance counselor as your protagonist?

I’ve worked with guidance counselors in the past. Some skills they have seemed natural for my amateur sleuth to have. The skills Brenna uses include research, understanding how people think, observant, active listening, drawing people out, critical thinking, problem solving, gathering information, making informed decisions, Brenna genuinely likes people and wants to help them where possible.

How important is setting in your books?

Bayview City is a fictional town on the shores of Lake Superior. My husband and I raised our family in a small town in Northern Ontario on the shores of Lake Superior. We had beautiful parks close to our town and took advantage of Lake Superior’s coastline. The lake was a factor in our lives because of how often the weather changed. We had some storms that came up quickly. The lake is vast, majestic, and constantly changing. I’ve used some parts of the town we lived in and parts of larger towns and cities in my books. It’s a setting I’m familiar and very comfortable with.

What’s your writing process? Do you have an extensive outline? Are you a pantser?

I do a lot of preparation for my books; I outline thoroughly. In my series, my main character, Brenna Flynn, takes on temp jobs. It’s important for me to understand the responsibilities  she has for each position. The recurring characters each support Brenna differently. New to the series characters need to be developed. I like to know who is the victim, who the killer is, and why they’re the victim and the killer. I’ve tried pantsing and it just didn’t work for me. I admire anyone who is a pantser! One thing I’ve started doing with book three is ending my writing session with a brief note reminding me of the next scene. It’s been helpful to keep me on track.

Did you always want to be a writer? Why crime?

I wanted to write, but wasn’t sure what to write. I tried my hand at writing romance, but it didn’t stick. I found writing murder mysteries much more fun!

Who are your favorite cozy authors?

I have several authors that I reach for frequently: Connie Berry, Lynn Cahoon, Kate Carlisle, and Vicki Delany. I’m always looking for new cozy authors to read.

What’s next for Brenna Flynn?

Book two, tentatively title Death in Academia, is with my editor. I’m writing book three, working title, Death at the Festival. I don’t think Brenna is going to find work as a guidance counselor for some time!

Rose Kerr lived most of her adult life in small towns. She and her husband raised their family in a small town in Northern Ontario, on the shores of Lake Superior. Rose is a member of Sisters in Crime, the Guppy Online Chapter of Sisters in Crime, and Crime Writers of Canada. For more info visit www.rosekerr.com

Facebook: https://https://www.facebook.com/RoseKerrAuthor

Instagram: @r.m.kerr

Twitter: @rkerrwriter

Pinterest: @rosekerrauthor

Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/rosekerr

Unifying Themes – Seven Sinister Sisters Tour

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We’re the Seven Sinister Sisters and we’re on a mission:
Seven mystery authors; seven new releases; seven answers to a central question
at each stop on our tour. The Stiletto Gang is our second stop and our question
this week is…

Is
there a theme underlying or unifying your books?

Cathy
Perkins’ Holly Price mystery series revolves around family and loyalty.
After her father cliches a midlife brain-fart and absconds with his yoga
instructor, Holly agrees to temporarily return to her hometown in order to keep
the family business afloat. Clients can do the damnedest things, however,
making her question all relationships.
With the next book in the series, In It
For The Money, Holly’s cousin is the catalyst for her involvement in
another murder investigation. Refusing to believe the rumors flying around the
extreme sport circuit about his alleged treachery, she follows the money –
another consistent theme – to find the actual villain.   

Sue
Star
also writes about families in chaos. Nell Letterly is a menopausal single
mom, trying to raise her teenage daughter, as well as fielding well-intended
interference from the rest of the family, including Gramps and Nell’s
fashionista, soon-to-be ex sister-in-law. They all disagree how a teenager
should be raised, but as a family they have a special bond. In Murder by
Moose, Nell tries to protect her family from a killer on the loose while
she teaches a self-defense class at a dude ranch in the mountains. But when the
going gets tough, the family always comes together to help Nell solve the
mystery.  

In Biscuits and
Slashed Browns—as in the series as a whole—Edith Maxwell (writing as Maddie
Day) expands this family theme to community. How do friends and family
rally ’round when someone is at risk or wrongly accused? How does a country
store breakfast-and-lunch restaurant serve as a focal point for the community,
a gathering place? In this particular book, the father of one of her
protagonist’s employees is accused of murder. This motivates Robbie Jordan and
others in the small town of South Lick, Indiana to work together to find out
who is the killer.

As with all murder mysteries, Leslie Karst’s Sally Solari culinary series
concerns issues of truth and justice. Equally important, however, are themes of
family and the food movement, and how the two create a conflict between
Sally and her father. The Solaris are descended from one of the original
Italian fishermen who arrived in Santa Cruz in the 1890s, and Sally’s dad is
fiercely proud of the family’s traditional Italian seafood restaurant on the
historic wharf.  When Sally inherits her
aunt’s trendy restaurant, Gauguin, her father—hurt
that Sally no longer wants to work at Solari’s—becomes convinced she now looks
down on her family heritage.

Becky
Clark takes a different tack in her new series, the Mystery
Writer’s Mysteries series. Officially, all the books are set in the world of a
mystery author, so with Fiction Can Be
Murder, she pulls back that curtain for her readers. Unofficially, her
books always have the same underlying current, that of the reluctant hero. It
seems she likes to explore characters who are going about their boring, normal
lives when — BLAMMO — something bizarre happens to them. They’re way out of
their comfort zone and flounder for a while before forcing themselves to pull
up their big-girl undies and fix whatever the problem is.

Returning to our recurring family theme, a few things
always show up in Shawn McGuire’s work.
First, relationships – whether between family members, romance, best friends,
parent and child, co-workers, etc. – are a prime element to the story. Second,
there’s always humor of some kind because even in the most intense situations,
humor helps. Third, an element of truth or finding your path in life often
shows up. Then with each book, a theme unique to that story or series will
appear. With her Whispering Pines series, while she hadn’t originally planned
it, religion turned out to be a strong theme.

In the first two books in the Cole & Callahan PI
series, Pat Hale says religion plays
an underlying role. In The Church of
the Holy Child, (September 2017) the serial killer torments a priest
with information on the murders, knowing he’s bound by his holy orders not to
reveal what’s heard in the confessional. In Durable Goods, (April 15, 2018) young girls are drawn into a
sex trade organization under the guise of coming to a religious refuge for
indigent women. The sub-theme of both books considers the confines and
constructs found within religious doctrine and their use for good and
evil. 

Thanks so much to The Stiletto Gang and all their
readers for joining our tour. We’re happy to address any comments or questions.
And feel free to contact any of us through our websites. Our next stop
will be January 25th with MJB Reviewers. See you there!
http://www.cperkinswrites.com
http://www.rebeccawriter.blogspot.com
To
celebrate our new releases, the Seven Sinister Sisters are having a giveaway!
Seven
lucky winners will receive an ebook from one of us.
One
GRAND PRIZE winner will receive a signed copy from each of us!
Enter to win by leaving a comment below. Our tour runs from January 6th to
April 30th and we’re answering a different question at each blog.
Leave a comment at each blog for more entries! We’ll draw the winner from all
the combined comments at the end of our tour.

Watch
our Facebook page for the next stop on the tour.

A Promise to Yourself

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by Sparkle Abbey

Each January our agent asks us for a business and marketing plan for that year. We don’t exactly look forward to it, but we are goal setting, planning kind of women, so we don’t mind. Part of our business plan includes an author mission statement. That’s not unusual. Every business should have a mission statement, and being a published author is running a business. We have goals and objectives, we need to know our target audience, and we need to be aware of our strengths and weaknesses. Makes sense.

But what about a personal mission statement—one that guides our actions, behaviors, and the way we treat others? A description that defines who we are and puts our dreams into words.

A personal mission statement takes honest introspection. You have to know what brings you joy, and causes you sorrow. You have to take an accounting of your strengths—and your weaknesses—a critical observation of your behaviors and patterns. The kind of statement we’re talking about brings focus and purpose to your life. Think of it as a promise to yourself.

Here are personal mission statements from two very successful women:

Denise Morrison, CEO of Campbell Soup Company

“To serve as a leader, live a balanced life, and apply ethical principles to make a significant difference.”

Oprah Winfrey, Founder of OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network

“To be a teacher. And to be known for inspiring my students to be more than they thought they could be.”

What if everyone had a personal mission statement? A positive sense of purpose? We could change the world.

What about you? Do you have a personal mission statement?

If not and you want to create one, but have no idea where to start, check out Time Thoughts. Not only do they provide great tips and guidelines, they also have a number of sentence templates that you might find helpful as a jumping off point. Keep in mind, your personal mission statement isn’t static. It can change and grow as you discover new things about yourself and enter new seasons in your life. 

Leave a comment and inspire us with your personal mission statements! We’ll start with one of ours: “To live life fully and honestly. To be kind and compassionate to those around me. To always chose joy.”

Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of two mystery authors (Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter). They are friends and neighbors as well as co-writers of the Pampered Pets Mystery Series. The pen name was created by combining the names of their rescue pets–Sparkle (Mary Lee’s cat) and Abbey (Anita’s dog). If you want to make sure you’re up on all the Sparkle Abbey news, stop by their website and sign up for updates at sparkleabbey.com.

The Good, the Odd and the Ugly of a Library Event

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Actually the event itself was great.

The Burbank Library has a wonderful meeting room–and they made beautiful flyers which they’d been handing out to patrons. And refreshments were furnished–and enjoyed.

We had a wonderful moderator, and a great group of panelists, all members of the L.A. Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

The topic: Cozies.

Here is where it gets odd. After we all chimed in on what constituted a cozy, we realized none of our books really fit the criteria.

The cozy is supposed to have an amateur sleuth. In both of my series, the sleuths are professionals in law enforcement. Both are set in small towns–another criteria.

None of that really mattered though because we had a good time and so did the audience.

Because I am a member and never get to participate in much with this chapter, I agreed to be on this panel even though I live far away (a 3 hour drive.) Not wanting to turn around and come home afterwards, I booked a hotel room in a place that was near the library. No longer driving in L.A. or at night, I talked my middle daughter into being my driver.

This is where the odd and ugly begin. The first room we were given had not been serviced. The linens were not clean at all. Called the desk and the manager brought us a new key for the room next door.
It needed to be vacuumed, but the bed lines, though dingy, were clean.

Though the event was at 7, we decided to leave at 6 just in case we ran into traffic or got lost. I put the address into my GPS and we laughed when it told us we were only 1 mile away from our destination. A good thing we left at 6–the GPS took us up the hill, over a bridge, to the left, to the right, back over the bridge, down the hill, on another long street and finally to our destination and we got there at 6:30 p.m. Good time to get set up and meet my fellow panelists.

One funny thing, the panelists really wanted to know what the F stood for in F.M. Meredith. I didn’t tell them, though I did give them the clue that it was an old-fashioned name. they had a lot of fun trying to solve the mystery, coming up with many, many names beginning with F.

Later I received an email from the moderator who guessed the right name. And no, I’m not going to tell you what it is.

After the panel, we headed back home, this time it only took about 10 minutes.

We settled down in our room, watched a little TV and went to sleep.

I woke up to my daughter looking out the window and saying, “This is our room.” Someone had a key and was trying to get in. They finally left.

Back to sleep. Again someone woke us trying to use a key to get in.

Both times the key worked, they didn’t get in because we had the night latch on.  This time we called the front desk. Of course it had something to do with the manager not changing our room assignment.

It wasn’t easy to go to sleep after that.

When we woke in the morning we decided to try Frank’s Coffee Shop which was on the premises of the hotel. It turns out that this cafe has been used for several movies.

Notice the picture of the owner and Tom Hank’s on the wall.

Larry Crowne starring Tom Hank’s is one of many movies and TV shows that have used Frank’s Coffee House for scenes.  It was not odd or ugly, though the restaurant has been around for years, the breakfast we at there was outstanding!

So this was another good.

Despite the bad and the ugly, daughter and I enjoyed the panel and our time together.

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith

Quite a bit of seating room and the…Frank's Coffee Shop