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Time, time, time…

Barbara Ross

by Barb. Last post from Key West.

Time, time, time, see what’s become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please

A Hazy Shade of Winter, Paul Simon, 1968

Readers, I have built myself a time conundrum. (Not nearly so fun as a time machine.)

The first five books in the Maine Clambake Mysteries take place in perfect order, with only a matter of months between books.

Then Kensington asked me to contribute to the Christmas anthology, Eggnog Murder, along with stories by Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis. Since Eggnog Murder would be published before Iced Under and I had cleverly skipped over Christmas in my timeline, I was a time management genius! I nearly broke my arm patting myself on the back. Now the line-up looked like this:

My resort town of Busman’s Harbor is very different in the tourist season and the off season. I had originally intended to write three books set in the (lengthy, because it’s Maine) off season, but with the addition of the novella, and the extended trip to Boston in Iced Under, my editor and I agreed it was time to get back to sunshine, lobsters, and Morrow Island. Book 6, Stowed Away is set in June as the clambake is reopening for the season.

But then–trouble. Kensington asked me to contribute to another holiday novella, Yule Log Murder. Christmas takes place in December, right? There was no way around that. So we fast-forwarded to December. I turned in Stowed Away and “Logged On,” the novella for Yule Log Murder, on the same day. As it turns out, I am sadly not a time management genius. I had only the vaguest notion of what happened to Julia Snowden, her family, and friends between June and December, but I did hint at one thing in “Logged On.” As it happens, Yule Log Murder was actually published before Stowed Away, but only a matter of a couple of months before. Now the time-line looked like this.

Okay, now where to go? Clearly a lot had happened between June and Christmas during Julia’s second year in Busman’s Harbor. I went back to fill some of that in. Steamed Open takes place in August. But the Time Lords weren’t done with me. Kensington asked me to write a novella for the Halloween collection, Haunted House Murder. Halloween, as we all know, must occur on October 31. To complicate things even further, the next novel in the series had to take place on Morrow Island for a whole bunch of reasons, before the clambake shut down for the season and before winter closed in. So Book 8, Sealed Off takes place in the week before Columbus Day. “Hallowed Out,” the Halloween novella, actually begins before Sealed Off and then largely takes place after. “Look at her, ladies and gentlemen, writing without a net!” So now we’re looking at:

(One thing is clear. You are most likely to get murdered in Busman’s Harbor in June, August, October or December, so pick a different month for your visit.)

So now what, time-genius? I ask myself. Some of what is hinted at in “Logged On” gets explained in Steamed Open and Sealed Off, but there are still gaps in the story. Part of me is content to leave it that way and skip ahead to the new year. I love it when authors do that. I think I’ve mentioned here that I read every single one of Ruth Rendell’s Wexford short stories, looking for the one where Wexford’s sidekick DI Mike Burden’s first wife dies. I was convinced such a story must exist, but I was wrong. Burden is a happily married man in one novel and a widower in the next.

But instinct tells me the next Maine Clambake Mystery gets squeezed in between Halloween and Christmas. Don’t ask me where it takes place or what happens. When he accepted my manuscript for Sealed Off, my editor at Kensington wrote, “Looking forward to reading the outline for the next one once it’s ready!” Him and me both, is all I can say.

Maine Clambake Readers, what do you think about my dilemma? Any feelings about what you want to read next? Everybody, how do you like to see time managed in a book series? Strong feelings? Good and bad examples?

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