MISS ALDRIDGE REGRETS is set in 1936. What made you choose that time period? Originally, I was thinking of setting this book just after WWII, but I changed my mind because I love the glamour of the 1930s so much. I love the music of that era, which felt important since Lena is a jazz singer. Of course, I also really enjoy reading stories set in that period, Amor Towles’ RULES OF CIVILITY, for example. When I started writing the novel, back in 2019, I was also interested in how world politics back then could be compared to what’s been happening more recently.   I like mysteries set on ships or other settings in which the characters are kind of stuck in one place. What made you choose a ship for your setting – specifically the Queen Mary? MISS ALDRIDGE REGRETS started off as a short story about a jazz singer who witnesses a murder and then has to leave London. At the end of that story, she is on her way to board a ship to New York, but everyone who read it was more interested in what was going to happen to her on the ship than what…

I’m a writer, and it won’t surprise you to learn that I loved reading from a very young age.. I graduated quickly from children’s books to adolescent fare (Nancy Drew was my first binge-reading experience, though I had to wait weeks or even months until someone gave me a present of the next few books in the series. How poignant was the longing for things, in that age before the Internet and downloadable books! Soon enough, Nancy Drew seemed too adolescent, and I started observing what my mother read. She liked the Gothic romances, and I started borrowing them after she was finished. In these novels, I got my first glimpse of extended and exciting dialogue. Characters would speak to each other—at length—and their conversations were compelling, even addictive. I recall reading a Victoria Holt novel with a dialogue that lasted for five or six pages, with no dialogue tags! She knew that well-written dialogue was enough to draw in a reader. Not only was I able to follow these back and forth, but I was utterly pulled in, as though I were eavesdropping on a real conversation. Holt’s characters were memorable enough that I would think about them long…

1–What is the title of your latest release? A COLD NOSE FOR MURDER.  It’s the third book in my Chatty Corgi mystery series.   2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? A banker turned baker and her charming corgi sidekick solve crime and bake cake in a Cornish seaside village.   3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I’d visited Cornwall while researching another project and had a wonderful time.  So, I based my village of Trevena on the village I’d stayed in.   4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Absolutely.  She’d bring cake and make tea.   5–What are three words that describe your hero? Since my hero’s a corgi, I’ll have to say sweet, furry and zoomy.   6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? Since one of my point of view characters is a dog, I had to learn a lot about dog behavior and how dogs experience the world.   7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done? I always edit as I draft.  It helps keep me grounded in the details of the story.   8–What’s your favorite foodie…

Although I often read psychological suspense or thrillers, I love films like that. What drew you to writing that type of story? Is it challenging keeping the tension up throughout an entire book? I believe that one of the challenges of being a writer is finding the best possible form for each story you want to tell, and it was clear to me from the moment I conceived What Jonah Knew that it could only be a psychological thriller. Maintaining tension throughout is essential, but it’s also crucial to provide enough backstory and character development to enrich the story with depth and meaning. In writing the book, I found keeping the tension up while exploring the minds of the characters was a balancing act. If a novel is too plot heavy, it reads like a treatment for a screenplay. If it’s too character driven at the expense of plot, it can become plodding. Finding the balance between the two was key.   In your newest book, WHAT JONAH KNEW, there is a disappearance that is a huge part of the plot. From the book description, I’m reminded of the classic film Don’t Look Now starring Donald Sutherland. It was a…

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 Laura Bradford! Writes: Cozy mysteries and women’s fiction about people that could easily be you or me.   About: While spending a rainy afternoon at a friend’s house when I was a kid, I absolutely fell in love with writing over a stack of blank paper, a box of crayons, and a freshly sharpened number-two pencil. From that moment forward, I only wanted to be two things, a mom and a writer. Today, I’m the USA Today bestselling author of several mystery series including the Amish Mysteries, the Emergency Dessert Squad Mysteries, the Tobi Tobias Mysteries, the Southern Sewing Circle Mysteries (written as Elizabeth Lynn Casey), and now the new A Friend for Hire Mysteries. A PERILOUS PAL, book # 2 in the series, releases July 5th. To learn more about me and/or my books, visit my website at  laurabradford.com.   What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: Someone who likes to laugh. Someone who likes to feel all the feels and doesn’t apologize for doing so. Someone who loves…

1–What is the title of your latest release? DEATH BY BUBBLE TEA 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Two cousins with opposite personalities, forced to run a food stall together at a local night market, get a serving of murder. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I love night markets and live in Los Angeles, so I combined the two for the fictional Eastwood Village Night Market setting. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? For sure! I’d hang out with both cousins…although maybe not when they stumble over dead bodies. I’d certainly tag along on their outings to visit hidden Los Angeles attractions, though. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? Yale Yee: filial, bookish, and curious 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? That there was a California lawsuit against silver dragées (those metallic balls used for decorating cakes and cookies). 7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done? Apart from minor word choices, I wait until I’m totally done—and then a lot of revising happens! 8–What’s your favorite foodie indulgence? Hawaiian chocolate dobash cake: a chocolate chiffon cake with…

1–What is the title of your latest release? AN ARTFUL DECEIT –  book 1 of a new 5 (or maybe 6) book series “The Art of Love” 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? What happens at a house party when a Duke is mistaken for a Viscount? Add two Michelangelo sketches, hidden passages, vanishing and reappearing art, threatening messages, conniving art collectors, arrogant academicians, a Bow Street agent, a lovelorn couple, and an elderly prankster. It’s enough to give a Duke a headache. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I wanted to take my hero “out of his element” to shake him up a bit. Plopped him down in a house party he couldn’t simply ride away from. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Yes! She is the embodiment of the phrase “still waters run deep”. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? Creative, polite, determined. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? Trust my unconscious mind. I practiced telling my unconscious mind to work on the next scene for me. I had ideas suddenly come to me while in the shower, folding clothes, pushing a…

I love dream casting my books, but I’ve discovered that the actors and actresses I picture are usually too old! I think of the ones that I’ve grown to love over the years, and they don’t work well for characters in their twenties and thirties. Maybe their parents. But BRATVA DARLING is easy for me to dream cast since Top Gun: Maverick just came out. A whole cast of hot young people to consider. Since Maksim Kutsenko is the oldest and the one who carries the heaviest burden of responsibility running the Ivankov bratva, I would pick Tom Hardy for that role. I think Tom would bring the right amount of grittiness while still being a loving partner to Laura Doyle. Aleksei, the second brother, is the hardest one to cast. He’s the quietest of the four brothers and four cousins. He’s observant and reserved, but he’s as fierce as the rest of them. I think I’d like Miles Teller to play him. There were moments in Top Gun: Maverick where I think he would get the nuances that Aleks’s character possesses. Nikolai, the third brother, is more outgoing than his older brothers since he doesn’t bear the same burden…

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 Victoria Schade!   Writes: Romance and women’s fiction for readers who appreciate happily ever afters that include four paws.   About: If you want to hang with me you’ve got to be Team Dog. (Although I’m also cat-curious, so you might say that I swing both ways.) You enjoy a little angst thrown in before you reach your happily ever after (think uncompromising heroines and family drama), and you aren’t afraid of a few f-bombs along the way.   My ideal reader match for DOG FRIENDLY appreciates: A heroine trying to find herself again A sunshine love interest who helps her see the bright side of life A foster dog that’s a sweetie in the sheets and a terror on the streets A peek at veterinary life, including the good, the bad and the messy A little sibling sparring A picture-perfect Nantucket setting A HEA that’ll hit you right in the feels   What to expect if we’re compatible: Visiting spots like the English…

1–What is the title of your latest release? COWBOY EVER AFTER 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? A romance writer travels to Montana to research life on a ranch and meets the real-life cowboy replica of the hero in her book. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I love Montana. My husband and I moved to the small town of Ft. Benton right out of college when he took a job there as the lead river ranger, and we just fell in love with the town and the community. We only lived there about four years before coming back to Colorado, but Montana will always live in our hearts, and I love writing stories set in small towns like Ft. Benton that capture the spirit and community of that life. The town of Bartlett in Cowboy Ever After is inspired by Ft. Benton and is a combination of it and Washington, KS, the small town I grew up in. 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? Absolutely. Kaylee is timid, but she’s also a lot of fun and has a great sense of humor. We’re both writers, so I’m…