Hey readers! Cate here, on a super special, triple-release day. Along with my new series debut, Witch Hunt, we’re celebrating the release day for Maddie Day’s Nacho Average Murder and the wide release of Barb Ross’s Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody. It’s an awesome day for the Wickeds – congrats ladies!
To celebrate, I wanted to talk about magic – my protagonist, Violet Mooney, is a witch, after all. And I got to thinking – no matter how many books we put out into the world (and we have a lot of them!) there’s always a magic about it.
For me, this book is a dream come true – I love magic, crystals, and cats, which covers about all the subject matter in the book. And I’ve always wanted to write a witchy, paranormal series. So this release is extra magical for me. To add to it, Cate finally got her new website! Which is also super magical and the fact that it got done in time is also magic…
What about you ladies? What’s magical about each of your new releases?
Edith/Maddie: As you both know, I am a native Californian. While I don’t miss the Los Angeles traffic or the smog of my childhood, I am still a westerner at heart. When I fly over the Rocky Mountains, I feel like I can finally breathe again. So setting a book in Santa Barbara was kind of magical. Hugh and I took a delightful research trip there in February of 2019. We sampled the food (and craft beer), checked out what was blooming, smelled the air. We visited all the places I mention in the book and gazed at both the wide Pacific and the Santa Inez mountains. It was magical to bring all that to life in Nacho Average Murder! I included a fortune teller on the pier (modeled on the real one), so the story also has a little of your kind of magic, Liz.
Barb: The magic of Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody is that it exists. I left my day job in late 2010. (Or rather my day job left me and the universe was sending multiple messages it was time to pack it in.) Through 2011 and into 2012 I wrote the first several drafts of Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody. I got far enough that I even asked Sherry to review it. But I never got to querying agents and the opportunity to write the Maine Clambake Mysteries came along. So Jane went into the proverbial drawer. (Which is actually a file that was brought forward every time I got a new laptop.) Then, in the summer of 2017, my agent called to say I had an opportunity to write a book that would be a Barnes & Noble exclusive. I was in the middle of moving and pressed for time so I said, “If you’ll take a book I’ve already written, let’s do it.” I had been plundering the Jane manuscript to produce short stories, so I sent them a copy of story that appeared in Noir at the Salad Bar and updated the old synopsis I had never sent out. Kensington accepted the proposal. When things settled down from the move and I finally opened the old manuscript, I was appalled. I had become a much better mystery writer in the ensuing six years. (Writing does make you a better writer.) Plus, in some misbegotten revision, I had changed half the manuscript to first person. I swear it took as long to fix the book as it would have to write a new one, but in the end, Jane prevailed. The magic is that in the crazy world of writing and publishing she is here at all.
Liz: I love that story, Barb! And love that there’s some magic in yours, Edith. Congrats ladies!
Readers, what do you think of the new releases? Any of them on your TBR list? Tell us in the comments below!