interview

Barbara Silkstone writes comedic mysteries as well as Pride and Prejudice Regency variations. Lavender Toes is the fifth book in the Cold Cream Murders series.

Bees, please

When Barbara began writing Lavender Toes, she didn’t understand the importance of honey bees to the world’s food supplies and production. Now, all that has changed.

In Lavender Toes, Olive Peroni and Lizzy Kelly are partners in Nonna’s Cold Cream—a beachside shop in the charming town of Starfish Cove, Florida. Barbara said, “The essential ingredient in Nonna’s miracle cold cream is honey derived from Digby’s bees. Even more important is the special honey produced by the Soprano bees. Those little buzzers create the super-secret ingredient that changes the miracle cold cream into magical cold cream—able to erase wrinkles overnight.

“Until my character Olive discovered the need for Digby’s bees, I had only a passing knowledge of how valuable bees are in keeping the world fed. I’d thought I’d alert my readers to our need for bees. Honeybees both wild and domestic perform about 80% of the pollination in the world. A single bee colony can pollinate up to 300 million flowers each day!”

Barbara added that bees pollinate seventy of the top 100 human food crops—which supply 90% of the world’s nutrition. Those crops include fruits, nuts, vegetables, and coffee. “The honeybee population is less than half of what it was in the 1950s. If those little buzzers die off, we die too. Plus, they are dying at an unsustainable rate. I can do without some foods, but coffee? Oh, no!”

Stopping the decline

Barbara offered dos and don’ts for people who want to help:

• Support local beekeepers who produce honey
• Limit the use of garden pesticides at home.
• Never spray a swarm of bees.

“There are a hive of things that are killing off our little friends: habitat loss, disease, climate change, and a new class of pesticides,” Barbara said. “Neonicotinoids were first used in the early 1990s, drastically increasing the demise of honeybee colonies. People can also help by protesting chemical companies who manufacture and sell neonicotinoids. These products were banned in the European Union in 2018 unless they are being used in a closed greenhouse.”

The Love Investigator

“The craziest thing I ever did in the name of research was to set out across the country interviewing men about women. After surviving a short marriage and a brutal divorce during which I lost all my previously owned assets, including my lovely house on the bay in Florida, I set out on a quest for answers why I didn’t see the train bearing down on me. Had I been blindly in love or just gullible?

“I wanted to find out what made men tick. Surely there were some nice guys out there. My plan was to interview 1,000 men in one year—one on one, alone in their man caves, where they would share their deepest secrets about women, love, and heartbreak.

“I had no idea the guys would talk so much. It was in the sixth year of my adventure that I gave up. I met with just over five hundred men and listened without comment to their tales. I could go no further. If I had to listen to one more story, I would scream. Possessing a real estate license isn’t sufficient armor against the army of angst.”

Barbara boiled down her research into a short book called The Adventures of a Love Investigator. After that experience, she said, “I curled up in my woman cave and vowed to stick to writing comedy.”

Learn more about Barbara Silkstone at https://secondactcafe.com.

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Elizabeth Penney is an author, entrepreneur, and local food advocate living in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Her cozy mystery, Hems & Homicide, is the first in the Apron Shop mystery series.

The beginnings of Hems & Homicide

“Before I became an author, I worked as a business consultant, advising entrepreneurs how to launch and grow their businesses. I soon saw how creative the business start-up process is when a person takes a concept from an idea to reality. It’s even better when they can use their unique skills and talents to support themselves. My main character, Iris Buckley, started working for herself after being downsized from a fabric design position for a catalog company. She has turned her love for vintage aprons and textiles into a viable business, first by selling online and then in the storefront featured in the series.”

Elizabeth also said that Iris’s grandmother is an active part of the plot. She’s facing a new season of her life after losing her husband. She is a partner in the shop, a new venture for her, and she’s also involved in solving mysteries.

“An odd conundrum is that while main characters in cozies are often under thirty (as Iris is), the majority of readers are forty and older. I think depicting vibrant older characters in fiction is important and shows how adventures can happen at any age. The story also deals with the challenges and joys of running a business in a small town with a tourism economy. As in real life, my characters have to deal with seasonal swings, town politics, and the emergencies and opportunities that crop up.”

Aprons — a part of history

“Aprons are an iconic part of our domestic history with many cultural and personal associations. As a premise for a mystery series, their variety offers a lot of story possibilities, and each book will feature interesting examples. In recent years, aprons have experienced a surge of new popularity. They’re even sold in big box stores. Twenty-first century aprons are frillier, fancier, and prettier than ever. So, the combination of an interesting and relatable history (practically everyone has a mom or grandmother who wore an apron) and an apron renaissance gave me confidence that a publisher might also see the possibilities.”

Fond childhood memories

“One of my first book-related memories is checking out a Nancy Drew book from the library at age seven. We had just moved to snowy Maine from sunny Virginia and I still remember traversing that long and icy driveway to the library, located in a historic Colonial house. So many treasures in that old library! As an introverted, imaginative child, books were a huge part of my life. Even now, one of my favorite things is to open a book and become immersed in a magical new world. My goal as an author is to create that experience for my readers. I also hope they will come to love my characters as much as I do. Around my house, we find ourselves talking about them as if they are real.”

The Maine mystique

Growing up, Elizabeth was part of an Air Force family. At age seven, her family moved to Maine after living in Europe and other states. “My dad grew up in New York City but spent many wonderful times in Maine visiting an uncle. We moved to the same town and even lived in the same house his uncle had owned! Maine has a mystique that draws millions of visitors each year, and I’m having a great time finding interesting history, activities, and trends to include.”

Elizabeth now lives about twenty miles from the Maine border, which makes it easy to take research trips to the coast. She believes that visiting a location allows a writer to include details of smell, taste, sound, and feel that cannot be experienced when looking at pictures.

“Although I have many memories of Maine, indulging in a refresher course has been fun,” Elizabeth said. “And so has enjoying (again) the many traditional dishes I include in my books: clam chowder, fried clams, steamed lobster, fresh corn on the cob, and blueberry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Food often plays a large role in cozies, even the ones not focused on it, and I needed to be sure my readers can enjoy a good (vicarious) taste of Maine cuisine.”

Learn more about Elizabeth Penney at elizabethpenneyauthor.com.

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