Author Interviews

Since she was seven, Sarah E. Burr has wanted to be Nancy Drew. Sarah now follows that dream through her characters in her Trending Topic Mysteries. Trending Topic #Murder is the first in the series. Sarah also writes the Court of Mystery fantasy series.

A generation gap leads to a Trending Topic #Murder

“I have been a cozy mystery fan for a long, long time,” Sarah said. “A few summers ago, I went on a big cozy mystery binge. I had just moved away from family and friends outside of Boston, ready to start a new life in New York City, so I was feeling kind of lost and adrift. The warm, welcoming world of cozies ended up being a great source of comfort. There was something about the genre, about an average woman who was willing to put everything on the line for justice, that really moved me.”

Sarah added that while she was reading, she began to feel a growing generation gap with the characters. “I was reading about twenty-something year olds, young women my age, who never thought, “Maybe I should Google my victim?” Millennials who left their phone uncharged or forgot about their phone completely. I don’t know about you, but my cell phone is the first thing I interact with in the morning. My mom DMs me every day and sends me pictures through Pinterest. My 83-year-old grandmother has a Bitmoji character. Technology is very much a part of all our lives, but it seemed to be missing from this genre that I absolutely cherish. So, I began to toy with the idea of an amateur sleuth who used her extensive knowledge of the internet to unearth clues and dig up suspects.

“Once this idea took shape, I found myself dreaming of the beautiful beaches and boutique shops of the fictional Central Shores strip, and Coco began taking shape in my mind. Back when I was in college and searching for jobs post-graduation, if I had known social media would become as big as it is, I would have wanted to get into social media marketing. As luck would have it, I was about one graduation year too early, so I decided to create a character who dominated this cool field of networking because I could vicariously live through her and her achievements.”

Social media—both good and bad

“I first began crafting Coco Cline’s story on my laptop, but one issue that I think really shines through Trending Topic #Murder is how connected and—in a little more ominous tone—exposed we all are on social media and the greater World Wide Web. My heroine Coco continuously references apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter when piecing together timelines and trying to understand her suspects. That is something anyone with internet access can do these days. I do it myself whenever I’m watching 48 Hours Mystery! By showcasing this through Coco’s amateur detective work, I hope to give readers insight on how they can better protect themselves online and provide thoughtful reminders that once something is on the web, the whole world has access to it. Granted, I don’t mean to frighten folks off of social media. As much as it scares me sometimes, I absolutely love it. Following celebrities, staying connected with family, gushing over cute dog pictures…it can be a wonderful tool. As the saying goes, with great power, comes great responsibility, and being connected virtually is one of those things we all should be mindful about.”

Sarah’s main character Coco runs a social media consulting business. In the book, Coco also posts regularly to a lifestyle blog Your Way Today. That means Sarah must come up with ideas and topics for Coco to feature during her mystery adventures.

“I am no blogger, in fact (and followers of my writing blog Noteworthy are well aware of this) I struggle pretty hard with it. So, why would I ever decide to write about a young woman who runs a super successful blog? Wishful thinking, maybe? Actually, when I have my ‘Coco Cline’ cap on, it’s really fun to brainstorm and whip up blog ideas. Coco’s blog mostly focuses on fashion, beauty tips, home décor, and entertainment. She stays far away from cooking most days…unless she wants to regale readers with a crazy kitchen fiasco. My favorite topic out of these subjects is home décor. Since I work from home, my 900-square-foot apartment has to function as both an office and an oasis. When Coco writes or outlines her blog posts about home décor, I’m often pulling from tips and tricks I’ve used to make my home feel fresh and cozy. I am a big lover of candles, so naturally, Coco writes a blog entry about how one can repurpose candles around the house.”

Connecting to characters

“Something that is really important to me, and one of the best things when it comes to reading a book, is feeling a strong connection with the main character. Someone who is relatable, real, and raw. As a writer, I want all my readers to feel that bond with my characters, which is why I set out to write a cozy mystery that a twenty-something year old reader could discuss with their grandparent because they both see themselves in Coco Cline. I want to write for both of those generations, and everyone in between! Just like technology connects us, it can also be frustrating. I hope that by humanizing technology, I can make it a little less fearsome to self-proclaimed technophobes.”

Dealing with life’s changes

On a more personal level, Sarah recently became a first-time paw parent. She said she grew up with pets, but Sarah’s mom was always the one who cared for them. “My dog’s name is Eevee, and she is just about the sweetest thing ever. She was rescued from a kill shelter in Texas, and after a few months being rehabilitated on a farm, she has made her way home to New York. I could not have asked for a better fur baby…and I have a feeling Coco may be getting a doggie of her own in the near-to-distant future!”

Castles and clues

Sarah’s Court of Mystery series features a headstrong Duchess who finds murder and mayhem around every medieval castle corner. “Because the series takes place in a fictional realm, I get to create a lot of my own rules, although I try to keep things as realistic as possible for the time period…which meant I needed to do research on palace architecture and nobility. What better way to research than to visit the United Kingdom? I went to England this past year and got to explore some breathtaking castles and estates, from the Tower of London to Kensington and Buckingham Palaces, all while learning about the long-standing history of nobility and the hierarchy of the monarchy. It was really inspiring and oh, so much fun!”

Learn more about Sarah E. Burr and Trending Topic #Murder at saraheburr.com

Ellen Byron is an award-winning author and playwright. A former TV writer, she’s written for comedies including Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. Murder in the Bayou Boneyard is her sixth Cajun Country Mystery.

It all started with Halloween

Ellen said she believes readers will enjoy reading about some of the 19th century superstitions about death. “Some appear to have been universal at the time, others more specific to Louisiana. It occurred to me that I had yet to write a Cajun Country Mystery that revolves around Halloween. Since Louisiana proudly bills itself as the most haunted state in America, I thought it would be fun to write a book that incorporated some of their legends and customs.

“There’s no ghost, but there is a rougarou that may or may not be real. A rougarou is the Cajun version of a werewolf. It’s not a paranormal book but reading about rougarous and looking at the photos when I was doing research gave me nightmares! But don’t worry, readers. I kept it tame in the book. The same thing won’t happen to you!”

Affordable housing

“I’ve been guilty of staying in AirBnBs myself, but they can do serious damage not just to the hotel industry in a city but the housing stock as well. In Murder In The Bayou Boneyard, an app called Rent My Digs is buying up properties in the small town of Pelican, Louisiana and turning them into short-term rentals. This threatens the livelihood of the local hostelries, like the one my protagonist and her family run, Crozat Plantation B&B. But it also makes it difficult for local families to find affordable housing.”

Looking back to holidays past

“In A Cajun Christmas Killing, my third Cajun Country Mystery, I wanted a story to revolve around the unique Louisiana tradition of lighting bonfires on the Mississippi levee on Christmas Eve, so I dragged my husband and daughter to Louisiana for Christmas in 2015. The weather was so bad on the Christmas Eve that I was afraid the event would be postponed until New Year’s Eve when we’d no longer be in town, rendering the whole trip pointless. In a holiday miracle, the celebration went on despite a light rain. At 7 p.m. on the dot, bonfires up and down the river burst into flames. Fireworks exploded in the sky above them. I ran from one bonfire to another like a kid, getting drenched from the rain. The smoke haze became so thick I couldn’t see the person next to me. I became covered with a thick coating of ash.”

Ellen said she shared every aspect of this adventure with her protagonist Maggie Crozat. “It was one of the most exciting events of both our lives – although mine didn’t involve being chased by a murder suspect! I’m so glad my family humored me and gave up Christmas at home that year.”

Learn more about Ellen Byron at ellenbyron.com.

A. R. Kennedy is an avid traveler. Her writing is a combination of her love of travel, animals, and the journey we all take to find ourselves. Undone in Uluru is the third book in the Traveler Cozy Mystery series.

A love of travel

Ms. Kennedy said she started this series long before the coronavirus pandemic and loves to travel internationally. Her passion for travel even inspired one of her readers to go to Iceland after they read her second book in the series, R.I.P in Reykjavik.

“I usually take one international trip a year. I was blessed last year to take two! One to Israel and one to Argentina and Chile. For those that can travel, I encourage you to do it! (When it’s safe to do so.) It broadens your mind and soul. If you can’t, I hope you can feel like you traveled with main character, Naomi, on her international trips. You’ll learn about interesting places, foods, cultures.

The first novel in The Traveler Cozy Mystery series was set on a safari in South Africa. Ms. Kennedy said the idea came to her while she was on a safari in 2015 as they dined under stars.

“With that experience, I knew I could find mystery in every place I’ve traveled to. I thought readers would enjoy the sights, smells, sounds and tastes of foreign lands.

“Book 2 was set in Iceland (I’ve been 3x). Undone in Uluru was inspired during my second trip to Australia. Uluru makes a great setting for a mystery. It’s exotic, isolated, and interesting. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site for its cultural and natural values.”

According to Ms. Kennedy, Book 4 will be set in Israel. (She was there in 2019). She said, “Future books will be set on all the continents. Naomi is going to travel to all 7 continents. (But not before me, of course!)”

Beyond Undone in Uluru

“I love to travel and I love animals, especially dogs. My books are centered around these things. The Nathan Miccoli series main secondary character is a spunky, beautiful black miniature schnauzer. Saving Ferris is a story that makes us consider what, exactly, pets mean to us. The Traveler Cozy Mystery series first book, Sleuth on Safari, has lots of animal encounters. In later books, Naomi’s feline family will grow.”

Challenges and craziness

“We’re all facing challenges right now,” said Ms. Kennedy. “As the author of a mystery series based on her travels, my research is now limited because my trips have stopped. I have no trips planned for 2020 or 2021. Fortunately I have a background of lots of trips so I have enough research already done for several upcoming books.”

Like many people, Ms. Kennedy looks forward to when she can return to normal activities. In her case, that includes travel and experiences like the one she had in South Africa.

“I slept in a treehouse in South Africa, by myself! Miles away from another person, I slept in a treehouse on a riverbed. I woke to snorting hippos and a mother and calf walking along the river. It was equal parts terrifying and thrilling. It made for a great scene in Sleuth on Safari. Staff at the lodge could not be believe I spent the night out there by myself.

Learn more about A.R. Kennedy at arkennedyauthor.com

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Anna Gerard is the pen name used by New York Times bestselling author Diane A.S. Stuckart to write the Georgia B&B Mystery series. Diane is also the author of the award-winning Leonardo da Vinci historical mysteries. Peachy Scream is second book in the Georgia B&B Mystery series.

Cozies with substance

Diane said she has a goal with her contemporary mysteries. She wants to show readers—especially the naysayers—that cozy mysteries are a legitimate sub-genre of the mystery novel genre. “Cozies are not just ‘Murder with Recipes’. Sure, the stories are more lighthearted reads than traditional mysteries, but that doesn’t mean important issues don’t crop up in them. My books’ overall themes address the value of friendship, and the struggles of finding one’s place in a new venue or at a new stage of life. But, most importantly, I show how a violent death disrupts the fabric of a community, and how good people band together, repair that tear, and somehow move on.

“In many thrillers and suspense novels, the murder victims are often simply faceless and nameless cyphers with no other purpose than to inflate the book’s body count. The victims in cozy mysteries have names. And, love them or hate them, they matter to their fellow characters…and, hopefully, to the readers.”

Diane added that she cares about her readers, and wants to give them the very best story she can. “I am proud of writing cozy mysteries and greatly respect the fans who read them. Nothing is more thrilling to me than to receive an email—and sometimes actual mail!—from someone who found my stories more than simply a light read. If my books have made someone’s day better, if I have helped them forget for a moment the passing of a dear family member or loss of a beloved pet, then I have done my job as a writer.

Theater’s influence on Peachy Scream

Diane said she’d long been interested in the Shakespeare authorship question. (One theory is that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare. She does classify herself as an Oxfordian.

“Peachy Scream originally had a major subplot addressing that subject. Sadly, word count won out over author preference. But the rest of the book fulfills some of those fantasies that many of us have…running a quaint B&B—I haven’t given up on that one yet—and acting onstage in one of the Bard’s most famous plays.

“While much of the theater and stagecraft in Peachy Scream came from good old-fashioned research, I did tap into my own brief foray into the theater world, which began and ended in Junior High as a member of the Junior Players Guild. I remember portraying the leader of a band of thieves, Roque Guinart, in a presentation of Don Quixote. And I was cast as the King in a truncated version of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Kind of the reverse of the usual trope, as I was a girl playing men…mostly because we didn’t have too many boys in the troupe. Obviously, I was not overly inspiring as an actor because here I am writing instead!”

A rattlesnake what?

“Time constraints of a full-time day job mean I’m mostly an armchair researcher,” Diane said. “However, in the past I’ve managed to coordinate a few vacations that served as research. One of my favorites was a long-ago trip to Arizona, setting of my historical romance Desert Hearts, which were also written as Anna Gerard. In addition to visiting Tombstone and a few mining towns, my husband and I stumbled across an odd and now defunct place in the middle of nowhere called Rattlesnake Crafts.

“The name explains it – everything for sale was made of rattlesnake skins, rattles, bones, fangs. The shop was set up in an unoccupied trailer, and payment was on the honor system. Choose what you want and drop the cash in the box by the door. The shop didn’t make into my historical romance for obvious reasons, but I did use one thing in a later contemporary short fantasy tale. That was the display of dozens of “found” metal discards—shovels, buckets, even a tricycle—rescued from the desert and hung from an old clothesline to clank in the dry breeze like a giant wind chime. The resulting sculpture was both beautiful and eerie, and I hope that even with the trailer store long gone this mesmerizing work of art still remains.”

Learn more about Diane at dianestuckart.com.