A Wicked Welcome Back to Nikki Knight! *giveaway*

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by Julie, considering getting a coat out in Somerville

I am delighted to welcome Kathleen Marple Kalb back to the blog today!

SHE (AND THE MOOSE) PERSISTED

“Never Surrender”

It’s 1980s power ballad my Vermont DJ Jaye Jordan would happily spin for someone who needs a little encouragement. 

And it’s also why you’re seeing her again this fall.

Persistence is my superpower.  

Another way to say that is: I have a really hard time giving up.

When my first historical series, and a second standalone with series potential got dropped by my first two publishers (thank you, pandemic debut!), I dusted myself off and started looking for new homes for my work. 

Landed happily and safely at Level Best Books, to start one new contemporary series, and continue the historical series. All good. 

A smart writer probably should have pulled everything she had on submission and focused on her good fortune. And that’s exactly what I would have done. 

Except that my favorite characters were still out in the cold.

Well, literally, since they’re in Vermont. 

In real life, Vermont is the place I learned how to be a professional, a journalist, and not incidentally an adult. It’s where I got my first full-time on-air job as a one-person news department. Morning newscasts, nighttime school and selectboard meetings, covering fires, floods, and visiting politicians in between. Brutal hours, insane workload, the skills and the ethics and the job just beaten into my bones. I didn’t love every second while it was happening, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. 

Or the friends and found family I knew and loved up there.

When I first started trying to write a mystery, I set it at a tiny Vermont radio station. The first version – think Stephanie Plum with moose – didn’t work. The second version did. LIVE, LOCAL, AND DEAD featured New York DJ Jaye Jordan starting over after her life exploded when her husband survived cancer and their marriage didn’t, and her dream job evaporated in a format change. 

Jaye’s Vermont became my happy place. 

A happy place where the right things happen, and the only breaks are lucky ones.

Unfortunately, it was not a happy place for book sales, and the series wasn’t picked up.

It’s worth mentioning here that Jaye’s world is also a diverse, open-minded, accepting happy place. A small but significant number of readers of that first book took it as a political statement and were highly – and vocally – offended.

I believed then, and I believe now, that it’s not a political statement to say every town deserves its own radio station serving local listeners. Or that anti-Semitism, homophobia, racism and just plain being a jerk are bad.  And yep, all that figures in the Vermont books and stories, along with radio, scenery, and the farting moose…so consider yourself warned. 

Bottom line, I loved Vermont too much to leave it alone. 

Jaye kept popping up in short story ideas, and I kept writing and selling them, maintaining a presence and the characters alive. Even a CatsCast Podcast in first-person feline featuring the Boss Cat, Neptune. (He kills someone who threatens his family!)

And then the Wild Rose Press accepted LIVE, LOCAL, AND LONG DEAD. 

By now, five years into a rather challenging publishing career, I know how rare second chances are, and how lucky I am. 

Luckier than you know. When the first Vermont book came out, my husband was in the hospital for complications in the middle of a brutal two-year cycle of cancer treatment. He got a good laugh out of the review that said Jaye didn’t take cancer seriously enough. And the one that said she shouldn’t be feeding candy to the moose.

Now? He’s in deep remission. My son is a snarky teenager, but loving and loyal as ever. Our lives are settling down, and I finally get to invite you back to my happy place.  

Bring some candy for the moose. 

Question: Readers, do you have something in your life you just can’t give up on? 

(One randomly-chosen commenter gets an e-ARC of LIVE, LOCAL, AND LONG DEAD.)

Bio: Nikki Knight describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order. An award-winning weekend anchor at New York City’s 1010 WINS Radio, she writes short stories and novels including the Vermont Radio and Grace the Hit Mom Mysteries. Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Magazine, and Black Cat Weekly, online, and in anthologies – and been short-listed for Black Orchid Novella and Derringer Awards. As Kathleen Marple Kalb, she writes the Ella Shane and Old Stuff mystery series. She, her husband, and son live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.

LIVE, LOCAL, AND LONG DEAD: Vermont DJ Jaye Jordan’s Green-Up Day ends in murder when not one, but two, bodies turn up in an old park — and one of them was much too close to both her ex and her current man when it was alive and bodacious. Now Jaye, with the help of a colorful (and diverse) cast of townies, will have to clear her men’s names, unravel a World War II-era mystery…and get Grandpa Seymour to the Senior Prom on time.  

The Wild Rose Press, October 9, 2024.

Buy:   Live, Local, and Long Dead – The Wild Rose Press Inc

Or Amazon:

Live, Local, and Long Dead (A Vermont Radio Mystery): Knight, Nikki: 9781509257461: Amazon.com: Books

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Published by J.A. Hennrikus

One woman, three names, many books. As Julia Henry I wrote the Garden Squad series for Kensington. As J.A. Hennrikus I wrote the Theater Cop series, and as Julianne Holmes I wrote the Clock Shop series. I've been an arts administrator for my entire career, mostly in the performing arts. Currently I'm the ED of Sisters in Crime, a wonderful organization that promotes and supports crime writers. www.sistersincrime.org Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram! @JHAuthors

30 Thoughts

  1. Hello, Nikki, and congratulations on Wild Rose Press wanting to keep Jaye Jordan going! That’s terrific news, and so is your husband’s recovery. I’m very happy for you. The radio mystery sounds like lots of fun, and I’m glad you persevered. I’m also someone who didn’t give up on getting my books published. I finished the first book in my Linder and Donatelli series (set in Bern, Switzerland) in 2013, and by the time I had a publisher for it in 2000, I’d already written three sequels. I was so annoyed about getting turned down that I just kept writing.

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    1. Thank you, Kim! What a wonderful story — it’s true, isn’t it? Sometimes rejection is an incredibly powerful motivator, because we just have to go out and prove the meanies wrong…and you DID!

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  3. Kathleen / Nikki,

    Whoo hoo! More Jaye Jordan is definitely a good thing.

    I’m really excited with the return of Jaye in full-length book as I quite enjoyed the first book. I mean, I love Vermont (my dad was from the state), I love radio/music and I love (fictional) murders, so clearly this is a series I have a great affinity for to say the least.

    I can’t wait to get my hands on my copy of the book so I can dive back in…and hopefully Jaye is playing some Whitesnake requests!

    (Please don’t enter me for the e-Arc as I can’t read e-books.)

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    1. Thank you so much! I’m so glad you’re looking forward to the book. Don’t want to disappoint you, though — Jaye isn’t playing Whitesnake this time…but she does have a few thoughts about one particular Bob Seger song!

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  4. Hello! I guess the thing in my life I won’t give up on is learning new skills, particularly in crocheting. I have immersed myself in a big way into it and I won’t give up on a work in progress, even if it’s not going well. SO happy to see that your Vermont radio series is back! Happy Fall!

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    1. Thank you so much! Nothing wrong with digging your hook into a work in progress until it’s just right! (My late mother was a knitter and she ripped up every project a couple of times before it was finished to her satisfaction, so I know what you mean.)

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  5. Congratulations, Kathleen! It reminds me of my Laurel Highlands series. After 100 rejections a sane person would have given up, but I never claimed to be sane. LOL

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  6. Welcome back to the Wickeds, Kathleen and best of luck with Live, Local, and Long Dead. I do love Vermont. As for persistence, my first book, The Death of an Ambitious Woman was 15 years from inception to publication–though I often tell new writers I would have been smarter to give up.

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  7. Congratulations, Kathleen, and let’s hear it for persevering! I hung in there through more than 50 rejections for my first mystery, then found a small press for it – and then landed an agent for a big press I am still with. I knew I wanted to be a published mystery author, and so far it’s working out pretty well for me. ;^)

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    1. I’d say it’s worked out pretty well, too! Hearing your rejection stories, and those of the other successful writers on this blog is really encouraging for me — and I hope for other writers, too!

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  8. Congratulations! Second chances are wonderful and I’m so happy you got yours. I have what I think is a ‘never give up’ story. After finding out about a novella contest being held by Debbie Macomber, I knew I had to enter. She is one of my favorite authors and the prize – having your story featured at the end of her latest novella – would be a dream. Long story short I did not win. Not even a mention. I then decided I loved that story too much to let it go. I submitted it to a dozen publishers and finally one said she loved it ‘if’. She gave me three pages of revisions. I worked hard, stayed up late, and incorporated every one of them only for her to tell me that the story just wasn’t going to work. I was crushed for a few months but a friend told me about a new small press and I thought “one more time and then I let it go”. That was the magic number I guess. A Husband for Danna came out in 2014 and even though that publisher closed down, my current publisher asked for a rights reversion letter and put it out in 2022. It’s still my favorite book I’ve ever written.

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    1. Wow! That’s a real writing love story! Congratulations on getting — and keeping — that special book out in the world!

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  9. Woot! Congratulations on finding a home for Live, Local, and Long Dead. Sounds wonderful. What is this give up of which you speak? Some characters get in your soul – gotta keep on keeping on with them or they won’t leave you alone. So glad you persisted.

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  11. Yes, I just can’t give up on praying that I will someday be a mother and married to a good guy I’m childless and very single and looking and never had a kind or been married so I really want this

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    1. Sending good thoughts to you, Crystal! (And perhaps a little encouragement: I was in my mid-30s, single, and pretty well done, when an old pal turned up at my work, and something clicked. We’ve been married for 20 years and our son just started high school. So it does happen.)

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  12. Having owned a radio station in a small town for 14years, I fully understand what you are saying. I had to learn to be the local, local, local reporter, broadcaster, everything-in-the-office person, along with he friendly PR face. Exhausting, frustrating and certainly not glamorous. But I didn’t give up until it was time to retire. Now I’m working on not giving up on my husband of 51 years. Exhausting, frustrating, and seldom glamorous, but loving.

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    1. You’re so right about small-market radio! And congratulations on 51 years of marriage…impressive!

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  15. I would say my husband. We will be married 36 years on the 14th of October. I would also say iced tea. Thank you so much for sharing. God bless you.

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