It’s such a joy to find an author and follow them through multiple series, especially an author whose writing grabs you and sucks you into the story. For me, Melissa Bourbon’s novels latched onto my hand as I held the book (I may have latched onto Melissa’s at a book signing) and drug me straight into the mystery. Lola was the first of many series to snag my love of a great caper. To this day, I still pull out my Lola Cruz Mysteries to reread!
But Lola was just the beginning of my girl crushes. Melissa has written so many great series, and they just keep coming from this talented, bestselling author. I had the pleasure of hearing about the Magical Dressmaking Mysteries before they went into print! Her Bread Shop Mysteries are killer whodunit recipes—the list goes on and I had the pleasure of asking Melissa about her latest release from her fabulous Book Magic Mysteries, Murder and an Irish Curse. Hold on tight, you’re about to get pulled into a great story!
Kym: Welcome back the Cozy Corner, Melissa!
Melissa: Thank you! It is always fun to visit Fresh Fiction and the Cozy Corner!
Kym: You’ve been known as Misa, Melissa and Winnie, all names having familial connections. You recently leaked a new series concept (tease) that your agent loved. Should we be looking for a new pseudonym or is it too early to tell?
Melissa: Juggling names is so difficult. It feels like twice the work! I hope not to add another one to the mix, but it is too early to know for sure. It’s a no.
Kym: I love your posts on TikTok and Instagram at bookishly_cozy, especially your Halloween post with your mom. How important do you think a social media presence is to a new author?
Melissa: LOL I’m new to TikTok and am having fun with it. It’s taken me a while to jump onto that platform.
I think social media is very important, which is why I did finally take the leap. Look at Colleen Hoover. Her success is because of social media, specifically TikTok. The power of word of mouth can be huge.
That being said, I have no expectations of that kind of success. I believe that different folks are on different platforms. Those on Instagram may not be on Facebook. And many on Facebook may not be on YouTube, etc. So creating and repurposing content to reach all my potential readers is my goal.
My mom had so much fun without Sally TikTok!
Kym: You seem to have found your niche in cozy mysteries, adding a paranormal flair to your stories to the delight of your fans that adds another great dimension to your novels. What do you think is key to writing a good paranormal mystery that all mystery readers will enjoy?
Melissa: I love magical realism, which means a bit of magic is simply part of the world. My characters aren’t necessarily witches (yet). I don’t have vampires or werewolves or shapeshifters or any of those very strong paranormal elements.
In my Book Magic series, Pippin is a bibliomancer, which is an ancient divination. Her gift has to do with an Irish curse from 2000 years ago. It’s just part of the world I’ve created.
In my Magical Dressmaking series, Harlow Cassidy is a descendant of Butch Cassidy in my alternate history. In my version of things, he leaves a pregnant wife behind when he escapes to Argentina. There he makes a wish in an Argentinian fountain which bestows his female descendants with ‘charms’. One is a goat whisperer, for example. One can make plants grow. Harlow sews the wishes and dreams of a person into the garment she makes for them.
I think these types of magic are pretty accessible. It’s more aligned to magical realism than stronger paranormal elements, which has more crossover appeal. That’s what I think, anyway!
Kym: You’ve recently released your 5th Book Magic Mystery, Murder and an Irish Curse. What aspect of this book was the hardest part for you to write?
Melissa: I love this series so much, and this book in particular! So much came together in this story. I had many aha! moments, which was kind of amazing.
Connecting all the dots of the history and Tuatha dé Danann with the entire curse and situation I created and grew in the previous books was challenging, but not nearly as challenging as I thought it might be. The universe really worked with me—or maybe it was magic.
Kym: The magic is in your fingertips;) Your mom asked for you to put a pronunciation key in the beginning of the book for the Irish terms and names. (Thank you, mom!) How big was the learning curve for you personally?
Melissa: I’m still not sure how to say some of the Irish names and words I read. I mean, they sound nothing like they look. There is nothing phonetic about them! I learned the ones that I felt were very important and tried to minimize others. I love the Irish culture and history, so it was actually a fun process to learn more about traditional names.
Kym: In your fifth book, Pippin is pressed more than ever to break the family curse to save her cousin and her twin brother who’s almost done rehabbing his dad’s boat. (The women of the family die in childbirth and die at sea.) I felt like this was a day in every mom’s household trying to go fifty different directions to ‘save’ everyone from their own disasters in the making. LOL. How did this particular curse develop for you?
Melissa: I started with a solid idea of who initiated the curse and kind of understood why. As I wrote, though, a lot of that understanding evolved. Who I thought placed the curse was completely wrong. Love it when that happens! The ‘right’ path appeared before me. More magic. The unfolding of it through each book in the series was like a series of bolts of lightning. I couldn’t have plotted half of it had I tried. It kind of all just fell into place. I’d do some research, I’d discover some bit of history, and BAM!, it gave me an answer I needed, or directed me where I needed to go.
Magic.
Kym: Throughout the series you’ve continue to use quotes from famous individuals, authors and some from their works to introduce a new chapter—everyone being creatively relevant to your own story. How hard of a task was this and did the quote come before the chapter, or did the chapter come before the egg…I mean quote. 😉
Melissa: LOL Usually the chapter came first, then I’d look for quotes that conveyed what I wanted them to. I thought it would be more difficult than it actually was. The Internet is such a helpful tool!
Kym: I’ve followed your personal journeys of rehabbing your homes and how satisfying it was to complete the job. Did that have anything to do with your storyline of Pippin and her twin brother, Grey, rehabbing their parent’s old beach house into a successful B&B? Were their struggles real? (Other than a dead body, of course.)
Melissa: Thank goodness we’ve never found a dead body! But yes, home renovation is a love of mine. I love decorating and reinventing spaces. In our current (and hopefully last) house, we took out walls and completely changed the entire space. I love it so much. Giving Pippin and Grey that task felt natural and was very appealing to me because it’s kind of my thing.
Kym: Pippin Lane Hawthorne is a bibliomancer, she magically reads between the lines of the books she reads, a skill she shied away from until she was forced to come to terms with it in the first book of the series, Murder in Devil’s Cove. (I think she has a talent all mystery readers try to achieve!) If you had a magical talent, what would it be?
Melissa: I’d love to be a bibliomancer. It’s just so cool. Or a scryer, which is someone who, similar to a bibliomancer, sees things in the reflections of water or liquid. I’d also love the magic power of being able to eat anything and always look fabulous.
Kym: I think I’d like to be able to turn a few people into toads;) You’ve got spell casting, tarot reading, and of course, bibliomancy in Murder and an Irish Curse. Should we expect more magic in your next series? (Yes, I’m digging deep for clues!)
Melissa: Yes! Adding threads of magic is something that just feels right to me. The new project has more than anything I’ve written, actually. I think you’ll be happy!
Kym: Yay! I can’t wait! Since you’re so good at ghosts, ghouls and spooky talents, how much do you delve into the Halloween season? Is the house decorated to the delight of all Halloween fans and are there any Halloween costumes in your closet waiting for you and your hubby to wear this year?
Melissa: We used to decorate a lot with the kids. Now that they’re all out of the house I decorate more for autumn. #fallvibes Autumn in North Carolina is beautiful, so we have the changing leaves all around us. It gives me my fix.
We’re going to a Halloween party this year and everybody is to dress as a detective. My gray wig is waiting for me. Miss Marple, here I come!
Kym: We have to see Ms. Marple on your social media! It may be the end of the curse, but will it be the end of the adventures with Pippin and crew?
Melissa: There is still the question of the bibliomancy to be figured out, and I do have more in store for Pippin, Grey, and the Devil’s Cove folks. So many projects!
Kym: Where can our readers find you on-line?
Melissa: My Website, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook
And if there is anyone out there interested in writing, I have founded an online writing academy called WriterSpark. You can check that out at:
https://writersparkwritingacademy.teachable.com/
Kym: I wasn’t kidding when I said she had magic in her fingertips, Melissa taught high school English for years. For writers and aspiring writers, check out her WriterSpark page and pod cast on the links above. Thank you for joining us at the Cozy Corner, Melissa!
Melissa: Thank you, Kym! XO
Until next time, get cozy and read on!
MURDER AND AN IRISH CURSE by Melissa Bourbon
A Book Magic Mystery #5
Hailed as “impressively original” by Midwest Book Review, the Book Magic Mysteries celebrate the magic in books. In this enchanting new story, Pippin Lane Hawthorne hopes her gift of bibliomancy will be enough to finally stop the curse that has plagued her family for two thousand years. But for every question Pippin answers about the past, a new one arises…
Armed with new information about her family’s connection to Dagda and Morrighan, from the Tuatha dé Danann, bibliomancer Pippin Lane Hawthorne is more determined than ever to stop the 2000-year-old Irish curse on her family.
When reporter Moira Quinn starts asking questions—and then ends up dead—Pippin discovers a personal connection that makes the quest for the truth even more personal.
With the help of her West Coast cousins, bookshop owner Jamie McAdams, and her twin brother, Grey, Pippin is determined to get to the truth once and for all. But the rumblings of the curse are close to home and the clock is ticking for more than one of the Lanes. Will Pippin be able to save her family or will she be too late?
Mystery Cozy [Self Published, On Sale: September 6, 2022, e-Book, ISBN: 9780997866186 / ]
About Melissa Bourbon
Melissa Bourbon is the national bestselling author of nineteen mystery books, including the brand new Book Magic Mysteries, a collaborative series with author Wendy Lyn Watson, the Lola Cruz Mysteries, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series, and the Bread Shop Mysteries, written as Winnie Archer. She is a former middle school English teacher who gave up the classroom in order to live in her imagination full time. Melissa, a California native who has lived in Texas and Colorado, now calls the southeast home. She hikes, practices yoga, cooks, and is slowly but surely discovering all the great restaurants in the Carolinas. Since four of her five amazing kids are living their lives, scattered throughout the country, her dogs, Bean, the pug, Dobby, the chug, and Jasper, a cattle dog/lab keep her company while she writes. Melissa lives in North Carolina with her educator husband, Carlos, and their youngest son. She is beyond fortunate to be living the life of her dreams.
Magical Dressmaking | Book Magic Mystery
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About Kym Roberts
Kym Roberts writes by day and is a pro-surfer in her dreams by night. Her humor is often raunchy, her jokes are often bad, but her hunger for a story keeps the adventures coming fast. Experience the thrill & catch the wave of passion, mystery, and suspense with her at kymroberts.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
Tickled to Death | Malia Fern | Book Barn | Hard Men of the Rockies | Men of Rock
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