Wicked Wednesday: One Success

Edith here, welcoming one and all to the month of May!

Our theme for the month is Success. To start off this set of  Wicked Wednesdays pick one of your characters – protagonist or other – and tell us about one important success they had, large or small, whether personal or in their mystery-solving activities. Don’t forget to mention which book this happened in.

Sherry: Sarah’s biggest success is starting her life over as a single woman and starting a business from scratch. That may sound like two things but they are so intertwined that they really can’t be separated. The first book, Tagged for Death, is what sets Sarah on her path to starting her garage sale business and navigating single life.

Liz: A huge success for Maddie James, my protagonist in Cate Conte’s Cat Cafe Mysteries, is coming home to Daybreak Island and helping her grandfather save his family home. It’s something she never thought she’d have to do, but when the situation arises she faces it with strength and determination. And this sets her on the course of moving home and starting her cat cafe business.

Julie: In my own life, I believe strongly in folks defining success for themselves. For that reason, all of my characters grow, and have their own versions of success. Sully Sullivan, for example, has success in A Christmas Peril because she makes amends with her ex-husband. Lilly Jayne has success when she hosts a party in Pruning the Dead, the first one since her husband died. Neither of these successes are huge in the scope of life, but they are leaps for the characters.

Edith: For my late nineteenth-century midwife Rose Carroll, her successes come from facing down society and even her own church in following her vocation – helping women birth their babies – and avocation – solving crimes in her town. Actually, this holds true for my other protagonists, too. They work really hard to make a go of their businesses while still trying to restore justice to their communities. And both Robbie Jordan and Mac Almeida are pretty good at it!

Jessie: My protagonists in the Beryl and Edwina series are really different kinds of people. For reserved Edwina finding new ways to make a place for herself in a world where the rules have changed has been an enormous challenge. She succeeds at this by stepping into a new chapter of her life as a private enquiry agent. Beryl, who is a renowned adventuress, has an altogether different way of measuring success. She has benefited greatly over the years from her fame as a rule-breaking, record-setter but her rattling round lifestyle has cost her a great deal too. The act of settling down in a small village and developing ties to the community provides her with some much desired growth and a sense of belonging that she comes to consider her greatest adventure yet.

Barb: For Julia Snowden in the Maine Clambake Mysteries, coming home and finding a place in the small town where she grew up but never felt at home is a major success. For Jane Darrowfield in Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody, finding a vocation she can excel at after her retirement is a success.

Readers: What’s one important large or small success you’ve had?