September 2023
Pre-ordering, Maple's origin story (part 3), and mystery recommendations!
Death in the Details (out 4/9/24) is now available for pre-order! Woohoo! If you’re interested in supporting independent bookstores (which I encourage you to do—they are awesome), bookshop.org is a great option.
Know what else is awesome?
Public libraries. I’d be grateful if you politely ask yours to purchase my book :)
I was super pumped/ honored to see that Library Journal featured Death in the Details in a round-up of mysteries coming out in April!
Maple’s Origin Story
Over the next few newsletters, I’ll share the story of how I came up with this story about Maple Bishop, a WWII widow with a strong moral compass, a unique skill set, and a need to reinvent herself.
If you haven’t read parts 1 and 2, feel free to go back and read them here and here.
Part 3: The First Manuscript
Once I saw the Nutshells in person, I couldn’t get them out of my head. I had the idea that I could create a mystery series using each one as the basis for a different book.
After several days of excited journaling—I like to do this by hand in a notebook, almost like I’m scripting a conversation I’m having with myself—I latched on to an angle that intrigued me: What if Frances Glessner Lee was saddled with a teenaged apprentice?
My instinct is that she would’ve hated that.
It was perfect.
(Authors have to be a little mean to their characters. Otherwise, where’s the fun?)
I ended up using the teenage girl as the protagonist. I named her Audrey, made her the daughter of a small-town doctor who’d just returned from WWII, and turned her loose to investigate the brutal death of her classmate (in a wary partnership with an eccentric local lady). The Nutshell called Woodman’s Shack was the basis for the plot.
It was very fun, and two exciting things resulted from that manuscript:
I submitted it to the Tassy Walden Awards and won first place in the young adult category.
This award reintroduced me to the lovely humans who comprise Connecticut’s Shoreline Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, an incredibly supportive group I had belonged to years earlier when I was drafting another YA novel.
I submitted it to a program called The Fifth Semester and won a scholarship to participate in a year of mentoring with an experienced author, bookended by two in-person workshop residencies.
I had never heard of The Fifth Semester before stumbling across it on Twitter, but it ended up changing my life; it was the turning point that allowed me to come up with Maple.
Though I remain fond of that manuscript—and grateful to it—I ultimately decided to focus on the adult mystery market and place the emphasis on the character based on Frances Glessner Lee rather than on her apprentice.
Next time: The Chicago Fifth Semester residency, where Maple was born
Recent Reads
The Lincoln Lawyer and The Late Show by Michael Connelly
Sometimes, I need a comfort read—and, for me, that often comes in the form of a re-read.
Maybe it’s weird that my idea of a comfort read involves murder, but I am who I am.
I used an audio/ print hybrid approach so that I could listen in my car while commuting for work and also enjoy some quiet reading time on our back deck; as we head into fall, the days for this are numbered, and I wanted to take advantage of the warm September evenings!
At the end of the day, Harry Bosch is my favorite Connelly character. Even though neither of these titles is a Bosch book, I still enjoyed spending some time with Mickey Haller and Renee Ballard. I’m happy all his books have been getting more attention in recent years thanks to various TV adaptations… but nothing beats the experience of reading the books!