1–What is the title of your latest release? THE KIND TO KILL 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Former NYPD detective Shana Merchant is a skilled Senior Investigator keeping New York’s beautiful Thousands Islands community safe. But she’s also bound by blood to a serial killer – and after months of concealing the truth from the world as she hunted Blake Bram down, her secret is finally out. Shana’s not to blame for the killer in her family, but people are starting to whisper that she attracts trouble. That A-Bay was safer before she arrived. And as her investigation into a missing tourist deepens, Shana starts to fear that they may be right. Because while Bram is gone, he is far from forgotten. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? All of the books in my Shana Merchant series are set in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York, and I incorporate real-life islands and villages into the stories. THE KIND TO KILL plays out between an island that’s home to an abandoned mansion, and the town of Alexandria Bay, NY. I reimagined that dilapidated mansion as a posh inn, but the town’s…

1–What is the title of your latest release? HEMLOCK HOLLOW 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? A college professor must reckon with her past when she inherits a cabin, and with it, the ghosts who haunted her childhood. Enthralled by the century-year-old journal of young Carson Quinn, Caroline McAlister sets out to exonerate him for the murder of his brother, only to discover a love she didn’t know she was looking for. Historical and atmospheric, Hemlock Hollow is an Appalachian requiem soaked in love, loss, and redemption. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? This novel was inspired by my family’s real cabin in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I had long been fascinated by the history and geography of the region, and much of this novel came from the historical research I did about the area. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? There are two timelines in Hemlock Hollow, so two protagonists: Caroline McAlister and Carson Quinn. Caroline would be great to hang out with. She’s an archaeologist who loves the outdoors and has a habit of dating bad boys. Carson shows up through his century-old journal…

Readers generally enjoy having animals included in their fiction, and cozy mystery readers are no exception, many almost requiring an animal in their books. For authors, adding a dog or a cat to their cast is fairly simple as well as enjoyable, since many of us have or have had pets. Writing about them therefore comes easily as we know how they behave, and we have plenty of fun memories to draw on. But how many authors have had fun times with an alpaca? Certainly not me when I began writing the Craft Fair Knitters Mysteries. So why did I choose adding an alpaca? It was a gradual but straight-lined decision. My main character, Lia, is a knitter, one who became proficient enough to sell her knitted items at a craft fair. Knitters tend to have favorite yarns, and Lia’s is the kind spun from alpaca fibers. I’ll let Lia tell you in the books about her many reasons for loving that yarn, but her favorite source for alpaca yarn wasn’t a yarn shop. It was an alpaca farm. Never having visited an alpaca farm myself, I needed to find one so that I could present it correctly to my…

1–What is the title of your latest release? WE KNEW ALL ALONG 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Jewelann’s revenge kiss with an old flame backfires when he shows up as the new tenant in her backyard garage apartment. Some secrets can never be buried deep enough, and some choices can never be undone. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I usually like to set my books in or around places I live or visit often enough to feel like I know. I moved to Ohio only four years ago, so it setting this book in my “new” town felt right. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? Jewelann loves estate sales, so we’d probably road-trip around to all of them, and then have a glass of wine while we talk about how cool it is that tomatoes keep turning red after you pick them…so yes! 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Determined. Maternal. Passionate. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? When to plant garlic. I have not yet managed to grow any successfully, but there’s always this season! 7–Do you edit as you draft…

Excerpt from Murder on THE WIDOW’S WALK Copyright © 2022 by Christine Knapp   As we pulled into the drive, I was struck once more by the beauty of both the house and the location. Oakhurst sat overlooking the bay and the ocean beyond. The main house had three stories, complete with a turret. There was a carriage house and a four-car garage off to the right. A massive white covered porch stretched along the front of the estate. A forest of thick pine trees surrounded the house. The mighty Atlantic stretched out as far as the eye could see. One could easily imagine a sea captain of old overseeing the building of this manor. There was a late-model, black Mercedes parked in front of the garage. The license plate read BUYOUT. “That’s odd. Why would Monty be here? He told me that he was flying back to Manhattan for his daughter’s play today, and Pippa insisted on leaving last night to be there in case she needed to make last-minute arrangements.” “Maybe it got postponed,” I said. We quickly walked around the mansion to the front entrance. Facing the massive black door, Meg used the bronze knocker in the…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE BONE RECORDS 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? NYPD academy washout Grigg Orlov must find the murderers of his immigrant father before he’s the next to die – his only clue an eerie artifact of the Soviet black market. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? The idea for the book started with the bone records, which were bootlegs of American rock ‘n’ roll songs cut from X-rays in the Soviet Union from 1945-1963. I loved the idea of including bone records in a story, but I didn’t want to set the book in the Soviet Union in, say, 1962. In Brooklyn, several neighborhoods are called Little Odessa because of the large proportion of Russian immigrants that live there. Older immigrants in these neighborhoods—Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend—would know about the discs, so I set the novel in Coney Island. It helped that I’m a huge Coney Island fan, with many visits over the years. 4–Would you hang out with your sleuth in real life? Yes, but would he want to hang out with me? 5–What are three words that describe your sleuth? Learning, instinctive, undaunted…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Winnie Archer (aka Melissa Bourbon)!   Writes: Winnie/Melissa is a national bestselling author of many, many mysteries. Whether you like capers, cozies, traditional, magic, or suspense, she has something for you! Her newest release, BREAD OVER TROUBLED WATER, is book 8 in the Bread Shop Cozy Mystery series. She writes the Book Magic mystery series, the Magical Dressmaking mysteries, the Trouble in Tumbleweed, and the Foxy Ladies mysteries, all as Melissa Bourbon. Winnie Archer plays solo with the Bread Shop mysteries. You’ll enjoy them all!   About: If you’re a fur-loving friend, we have a future ahead of us. Agatha and Sailor are pups and some of my favorite characters in my two current series (the Bread Shop mysteries and the Book Magic mysteries). Plus, there’s Thelma Louise, the cantankerous goat in my Magical Dressmaking series, and Miss Havisham, the bookshop cat in Devil’s Cove. Basically, I’m an animal lover in real life and at least some of my characters are also animal lovers….

1–What is the title of your latest release? DEATH BY SMOOTHIE   2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Freelance writer Jaine Austen gets a gig as a script doctor on an amateur theatrical production, where the only thing worse than the script is the diva leading lady. When the diva is bumped off with a deadly smoothie, Jaine sets out to find the killer—all the while dealing with her own personal diva—her cat, Prozac, who keeps breaking out of their apartment to wreak havoc on the neighbor’s petunias. More high jinks ensue when Jaine accidentally makes the winning bid in a Most Eligible Bachelor Auction. Don’t miss this stirring saga of murder, mayhem, and really bad acting.   3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? Most of Jaine’s adventures take place in Los Angeles, and show biz stories are always fun for me, so I set this one in the wacky world of amateur theatrics.   4–Would you hang out with your sleuth in real life? Absolutely! In fact, I hang out with my sleuth 24/7. Jaine is a much younger, braver version of me.   5–What are three words that describe your…

1–What is the title of your latest release? WINTER’S END 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Winter is over in Benedict, Alaska. It’s time to find the bodies. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? WINTER’S END is the fourth book in the Alaska Wild Series. I’d wanted to set a series in Alaska since my husband and I visited it twenty years ago and was lucky to begin this series with Thin Ice. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? Yes, she’s kind of a mess, but she has a good heart. 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Introverted, healing, conflicted. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I thought that by now my protagonist would fight being out in the middle of nowhere, but she’s relishing it instead. As I wrote this book, I sensed that I might also be able to adapt to a sort of primitiveness that I hadn’t thought I could before. 7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done? Since I’m not good at outlining, I push hard through a first draft and then edit after…

I love mysteries with a quirky convention or fan festival as part of the story. In your new book BAKE OFFED, you have the “Maryland Mystery Fan Fest”. What was your inspiration? BAKE OFFED takes place at a fictional mystery fan fest. The book was inspired by the dozens of actual mystery fan conventions I’ve attended. I was at one of them, Left Coast Crime, in March of 2020 when Covid shut down the gathering on its first day. At that time, I was plotting my 8th Five-Ingredient Mystery. Realizing it might be a long time before I would once again meet mystery writers and fans in person, I created a fictional mystery festival. Like most such gatherings, the one in my book includes panels, book signings, and a charity auction for book lovers. But it also has a few features not usually seen at a real mystery convention–a Deadly Desserts bake-off and a murder, which the fest attendees are eager to solve.   As is the case with many mysteries, the murder victim in BAKE OFFED seems to be disliked by many, and so there are multiple plausible suspects. Do you have the murderer determined before you write the book, or does the guilty party change as…