Launch Day and Giveaway- Murder in an English Village!

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Jessie: In New Hampshire where a recent storm has downed trees and ended the foliage season abruptly!

MURDER IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGEToday is the launch day for my seventh published novel. Seven. Seven whole novels! As I type this I am hugging myself with delight. How is life such a wonderment?

Not only is it the launch of a novel but it is the debut is a whole new series. I cannot tell you how much pleasure this new imaginary world has brought me! Murder in an English Village simply poured out of me with a flow I had never before experienced. It was magical. It was almost entirely fun.

I am utterly in love with Beryl and Edwina, the dual protagonists of this series. They represent the things I love, the things I am and the things I most long to be. They live in a time and a place I have so often imagined through deep dives into the magic of the Golden Age of Detection and the beguiling works of E.F. Benson and P.G. Wodehouse.

But it is more than that. It isn’t just the era and all its alluring accoutrements like soda siphons and Rolls Royce Silver Ghosts. It is the characters themselves with whom I am totally smitten. They feel so much like two sides of the same coin to me and I have loved tipping and tossing them this way and that. I love the way they play off each other and highlight the strengths or weaknesses of the other. I love how they each have expertise and preference. I love discovering what those things are.

Cards on the table, I really want to be Beryl when I grow up. Well, minus the string of ex-husbands. After all, I told my husband, before we married, that the only man I would ever consider leaving him for was Hercule Poirot. Beryl has no such compunctions which, not surprisingly, baffles spinster Edwina. I admire Edwina’s deep connection to place and understand her love of her gardens and her feeling of responsiblilty for the small creatures that live there like wild birds and families of rabbits.

I adore writing about gnarled jobbing gardener Simpkins and gossipy postmistress Prudence Rathbone. I wish I owned Beryl’s motorcar or Edwina’s hat collection. I would love to shop the High Street of imaginary Walmsley Parva with my wicker basket draped over my arm and Crumpet the dog capering along at my side snuffling at the hedgerows and generally making merry. I wish I could stop right this minute for a cuppa and a scone at Minnie Mumford’s Silver Spoon Tearoom.

And although it is all in my mind, I still cannot quite believe I get to spend my time with such delightful imaginary friends. I am even more astonished that others are able to visit with them too through the wizardry of books. I can only hope you enjoy it all as much as I do!

Readers, leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of Murder in an English Village! I’d love to hear about your favorite characters from books, your favorite historical era or your favorite part of your own job. 

 

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Published by Jessie Crockett

Jessie Crockett wears a lot of hats, both literally and literarily. As Jessie Crockett she is the Daphne Award winning author of Live Free or Die and the nationally bestselling Sugar Grove series. As Jessica Ellicott she has received starred reivews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal for her historical mystery Murder in an English Village. As Jessica Estevao she writes the Agatha Award nominated Change of Fortune Mysteries. She loves the beach, fountain pens, Mini Coopers and throwing parties. She lives in northern New England where she obsessively knits wool socks and enthusiastically speaks Portuguese with a shocking disregard for the rules of grammar.

113 Thoughts

  1. I’m sorry about your inclement weather conditions.
    I think the Georgian and Regency eras are my favorite historical eras.
    I love the sound of your book. Does it have ghosts in it?

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  2. Just purchased this book for my NOOK. Can’t wait to get started reading it! I love books set in the early 1900’s, especially mysteries. One of my favorites is the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd. I live in Maine and the weather here was nasty, but not as bad as other parts of New England. Hope things improve for you!

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  3. I’m a reading specialist so I get to help students develop a “like “ for reading. Most of my students are dyslexic so they usually hate reading when they start with me. I do get some to love books but if I can st least get a like, I call it a win!!!

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  4. Jessie, there are not enough congratulations in the world to express how happy I am for you! I couldn’t be prouder if I had birthed your brilliance myself! Just bask in it.. all of it.
    Love you, Lauri

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  5. Yes, I like that Golden age of detection as you say. I also like reading mysteries sets just a bit earlier, closer to Victorian edging into Edwardian because things were changing so quickly in the world at that time. Cars, electricity, a lot of game changers for murderers and their pursuers.

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  6. I am delighted by your delight in your characters and setting. I love this time period and women in small English villages who show they are so much more than expected. I can’t wait to visit this village and meet the residents!

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  7. This sounds like another fun series to add to my list. I do no discriminate I like most eras if the book is good. I hope all that rain put out the fire in northern NH.

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  9. This sounded so good when I read about it a while back that I pre-ordered and it arrived on my kindle today 😀 – so my plan for Friday night is to curl up with this book, a glass or two of wine and a log fire and ENJOY!

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  10. Congratulations on your new book! I really enjoy reading historical mysteries. My two favorite characters right now are Lady Georgiana Rannoch from the Royal Spyness books by Rhys Bowen and Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. I can’t wait to dive into your book and meet Beryl and Edwina!

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  11. I love the turn of the century. I think my love started when I was younger with the Betsy-Tacy books.

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  13. Congratulations on launch day which I know is going to be a great success!

    Oh my, from your description of the characters and snippets of their lives, I can’t wait to read Murder in an English Village. It sounds right up my alley and one I’m going to love reading and sharing.

    Thanks for the chance to win a copy!

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  14. I am so happy for you, Jesse! (Right now I’m also thrilled that I actually have a little bit of internet access.)
    I can’t wait to read The Adventures of Beryl and Edwina. May the series be successful and long-running.

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  15. I am so very happy for you Jessie! Birthing a book is a monumental task. Now we all get to enjoy your characters, too. Thank You! I am happy to see that others are like me and enjoy Jacqueline Winspear’s character Maisie Hobbs and Charles Todd’s Bess Crawford. I also like Rhys Bowen’s characters and have read both the Royal Spyness books and the Constable Evans’ ones. Books set in Wales, England, Ireland (Shelia’s Maura Donovan is a favorite character) are always on my bedside table. Contemporary books with good characters are also favorites…I really like Sherry’s Sarah Winston! I am looking forward to reading your book!

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  16. Thanks for the great blog today! I can’t wait to read your book. It sounds like so much fun and your characters sound like great people to be around!

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    1. It does feel familiar somehow, doesn’t it? Maybe because of film, maybe antique shops and attics filled with cloche hats and cocktail shakers and photographs of achingly young men in uniform.

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  18. Happy launch day! I can’t wait to start this series! Love historical fiction and a good murder mystery! There’s not really an era I don’t like. But I guess my favorite is the Georgian era.

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  21. Murder in an English Village sounds like a real labor of love. Two books come to mind when I think of favorite characters: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Anne of Green Gables. Congratulations on your launch day!

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  22. I believe I’m as excited about this launch as you are! I can’t wait to meet Beryl and Edwina.

    I love all the eccentric characters in the Agatha Christie books. Beryl and Edwin’s will fit right in.

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  27. I am going to download this and read it tonight while tending to the trick or treaters at the door. It will be my treat to me. I am sure I will enjoy it.

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  29. Happy release day! I don’t really have a favorite character or era for books (too many to choose from!), but I did recently enjoy a wonderful historical mystery called Whispers of Warning. You might be familiar with it? At any rate, I enjoyed reading about the era of suffrage and really liked the heroine. This book sounds equally enjoyable! mbradeen@yahoo.com

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  33. This series sound like my cup of tea! I can tell already that I’ll identify with Edwina, and I love it that you gave “me” a hat collection!!! 🙂 I’m hard at work on book three of a series (The Penningtons Investigate) with dual sleuths, and that aspect has its challenges, doesn’t it? All the best, Jessie! –kate, writing as c. t. collier

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  35. Thanks to Victoria Thompson for adding a link to this page from Facebook! I love anything set in England, and New York City late 1800s, and other places and periods, too.

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  38. Being of English blood, I enjoy books with a setting in England and this is calling my name. My fingers are crossed my name is chosen.

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  40. I just retired after 30 years of being a special education teacher. I liked helping my students.
    Thanks for offering this chance to win!!

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  41. Congratulations on the birth of your new book! An English village USA great setting for the new series, can’t wait to start reading it!

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  43. Congrats on your new book (& series). Lately I’ve really been interested in books (especially mysteries) set during & after WWI.

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  44. I’d love to spend some time with your imaginary friends (but right now I need to thrash through the email).

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  45. I really enjoy reading historical fiction and learning about the different time periods. I especially like reading about the Antebellum and Civil War era. Would love to read “Murder in an English Village” and learn more about the English way of life.
    diannekc8(at)gmail(dot)com

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  48. Hi Jessie, The new series sounds like so much fun! I’ve only read the first book in the Whispers series, but really enjoyed it! I’ll be diving into this new one as well. And Happy Halloween!

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  49. Happy release day! My copy actually came in the mail today so it is on my tbr pile. (Thanks for the chance to win and on that rare occurrence that I should win, I would love to have a copy for my friend). To answer your question, if a bit different, I would love to move to Wagtail Mountain. The setting of Krista Davis’ Paws and Claws mystery. And I love Oma in them! I also adored your main character in your Maple series. So very sad that one is not being continued. I do not think I laughed out loud as much reading any other series. I loved it. (I also have a bit of CRS so I cannot remember the whole name of the series or the name of the characters, lol)

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  50. CoNgRaTs on your Release Day!! There are so many characters/places I adore in books, but for the last few years my favorite has been Phryne Fisher in 1920’s & 30’s Melbourne, Australia. My favorite for the last 2 decades has been Brother Cadfael in 12th Century Shrewsbury, England.
    Cheers!
    Kelly Braun
    Gaelicark(at)yahoo(dot)com

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