by Roseanna White | Jul 13, 2010 | Uncategorized
Today I’m happy to welcome Amanda Flower to the blog to talk about her debut novel Maid of Murder, a cozy mystery just out in June.
Amanda’s offering a $10 Borders gift card to one lucky winner, so leave your comment below with an email address for a chance to win!
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About Amanda
Autho
r Amanda Flower, a native of Akron, Ohio, started her writing career in elementary school when she read a story she wrote to her sixth grade class and had the class in stitches with her description of being stuck on the top of a Ferris wheel. She knew at that moment she’d found her calling of making people laugh with her words. Like her main character India Hayes, Amanda is an academic librarian for a small college near Cleveland. When she is not at the Library or writing her next mystery, she is an avid traveler who has been to seventeen countries, forty-eight U.S. states, and counting. Maid of Murder is her debut novel and the first in a series featuring amateur sleuth India Hayes. Amanda is also currently seeking a publisher for her middle-grade children’s mystery, The Mystery of the First Andora. She lives and writes near Akron.
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About Maid of Murder
India Hayes is a lot of things . . . starving artist who pays the rent as a college librarian, daughter of liberal activists, sister of an emotional mathematician, tenant of a landlady who has kissed the Blarney Stone one too many times, and a bridesmaid six times over. But she’s about to step into the most challenging role of her life: amateur sleuth.
Childhood friend and now knockout beauty, Olivia Blocken is back in town to wed her bodybuilder fiancé with India a reluctant attendant . . . not just because the bridesmaid’s dress is a hideous mess, but because she’s betraying her brother. Mark still carries a torch for the bride who once broke his heart and sent his life into a tailspin.
When Olivia turns up dead in the Martin College fountain and the evidence points to Mark, India must unmask the real culprit while juggling a furious and grieving Mother of the Bride, an annoyingly beautiful Maid of Honor, a set of hippie-generation parents, the police detective who once dated her sister and is showing a marked liking for her, and a provost itching to fire someone, anyone—maybe even a smart-mouthed librarian.
India’s investigation leads her on a journey through childhood memories that she’d much rather have left in the schoolyard, but to avoid becoming the next victim, it is a path she must follow.
Maid of Murder is a fast-paced, laugh-out-loud mystery set in an amusing world of academia. Readers will fall in love with India Hayes’s fierce loyalty and wit.
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What’s your latest book?
My latest book is my debut cozy mystery called Maid of Murder. It’s the first in the India Hayes Mystery series. The novel was just released on June 16, 2010 by Five Star Mystery, Gale Cengage Learning.
In Maid of Murder, India Hayes, a college librarian and reluctant bridesmaid, is thrown into the role of amateur sleuth as she hunts down the person who murdered her childhood friend and framed her brother for the crime.
Oo, sounds good! And love the title. And the heroine’s name! What’s your favorite part of the story?
I have several favorite scenes from the novel. One of my favorites is early on when India tries on her bridesmaid dress for the first time. India has a fair complexion and the dress is gold. Consequently, it looks awful on her, and of course, it is about two sizes too small for her. She is horrified. I think any woman who has been in a bridesmaid before can relate to this scene.
The worst story I can tell from personal experience is ending up with two lavender dresses, worn a week apart. Always said I was going to dye one navy, but never got around to it, LOL. (And at least they were both pretty!) What’s your favorite genre to write? To read?
I was a kid in the 1980s and early 1990s at the height of the Baby-sitters Club craze. I too was a huge fan of the series, and my dad would always buy the latest book for me when he was out grocery shopping. At some point, the author Ann M. Martin decided to start a companion series called the Baby-sitters Club Mysteries. The spinoff series had the characters I loved, but they were crime solvers. They found lost dogs, jewelry, and money. It was the mysteries I loved the most, and they started my love of the mystery genre. As a teen and then adult, I gravitated to the mystery section in my local Library. When I decided to write my first novel, I knew it would be a mystery because it’s my favorite genre.
I read a few of those too! Though I don’t have that mystery-mindset. I’m always in awe of those of you who do! Let’s shift gears, though. What would your dream office look like—and what does your REAL writing environment look like?
I live in a condo and don’t have room for a real office per se. Right now, I have a corner cubby of my bedroom dedicated to the cause. However when I was a child, my dream house was a Victorian Queen Anne with a tower, and I always dreamed that I’d write sitting on the window seat in the turret of the house. Now as an adult having a big old house like that doesn’t appeal to me anymore. That’s way too much house to take care of, but if I could get the turret added to my condo, I’d love that. The condo association, not so much.
LOL. I always wanted a turret too. Though in the middle of this heat-wave, I consider it and go, “Ugh! No way! It would be sweltering up there.” Next question. If someone were to give you $5,000 to spend on anything you wanted, what would you buy? (No saving or gifts to charities allowed!)
If I was given $5000 to spend on anything, I’d spend it on travel. I love to travel and have been to seventeen countries and forty-eight U.S. states. One of the places I’ve always wanted to visit is India. I’ve been fascinated by the country since I was a child. In fact, I named my main character in Maid of Murder India after the country because I’m so interested in it. I’d also use the money to take my friend, Mariellyn Dunlap, who is a community church worker for the United Methodist Church, along with me. Robin Jones Gunn, one of my favorite authors, could write about it. The trip definitely has Sisterchicks potential.
We’ll send Robin a note if ever you get to do that. 😉 I’m fascinated by India too, and have a historical idea that starts there. =) Do you remember where you were when you got your first or most important call about a book contract?
I remember exactly where I was. I was in my office at work. I’m a college librarian. I didn’t receive a call, I got an email. I was so excited and surprised, I yelped. I’m sure the students who were studying nearby wondered what was wrong with the quirky librarian. One of the reasons, I was so shocked was Five Star had previously rejected Maid of Murder a little over a year before, but somehow, a different acquisitions editor for the publisher got hold of my manuscript and liked it. I know how blessed I am to have my novel acquired after being rejected by the same publisher. I don’t know of any other author this has happened to. I’m so grateful!
How cool is that! I’ve gotten two rejections on the same manuscript at the same publisher, but your version’s much better, LOL. What are you writing right now?
Currently, I am revising the sequel to Maid of Murder. In the second book, India, much to her chagrin, is working at a folk art festival as a face painter. She does it as a favor for her older sister, Carmen, and gets tangled up in a murder investigation as a result. At the same time, I have started writing a new cozy mystery series. I’m in the very early stages and am just getting to know my characters. After spending so much time with India and her cohorts, it’s a little strange to be thinking about a new main character, a new setting, and a new supporting cast. However, the idea for this new series just won’t let me go, and I have to write it.
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Thanks for visiting and telling us about your book, Amanda! It sounds great!!
Readers, check out Amanda online at www.amandaflower.com and her blog at amandaflower.wordpress.com.
You can purchase her book directly from her or at Amazon.
Void where prohibited. Entry into the contest is considered verification of eligibility based on your local laws. Contest ends 7/19/10. Winner will have two weeks to claim prize.
by Roseanna White | Jul 12, 2010 | Uncategorized
And no, I don’t mean the Twilight Saga. (Though I did just go see Eclipse . . .)
I’m thinking more things our characters are obsessed with that give them little personality quirks to make things fun. In Driftwood Lane the heroine is a safety inspector, and she’s more than a little obsessed with things being super-safe and up to code. Things many of us wouldn’t notice. It can be a ton of fun to have those things in our own characters too.
For instance, I have a heroine, Davina, who grew up in a very stodgy family. She’s breaking out of that shell and going a little crazy with interesting fashions, but her major obsession is tea. Though she’ll talk your ear off any other time, when she has a cup of tea in her hands, she goes totally silent. Before she came to Christ, she used it as a time of reflection. Now, it’s her prayer time. And she’s so well known for it that whenever her friends or family need some quiet, they just shove a cup of tea at her.
In another of my contemporaries, my heroine is the sole daughter sandwiches between two sets of sons. Her thing, when it comes to those four brothers, is to greet everything they do with either “Worst brother ever!” or “Best brother ever!” which always makes her siblings laugh. Especially since the smallest thing might get them either the blessing or the curse.
Have you come across any fun characters quirks or obsessions lately, either in a published book or one of your own manuscripts? Share!
by Roseanna White | Jul 9, 2010 | Uncategorized
I’m happy to welcome Deborah Vogts to the blog today, to talk about her latest release, Seeds of Summer.
Deborah has offered a copy to one lucky winner, so leave your comments below with an email address for a chance to win!
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About Deborah
Deborah Vogts and her husband have three daughters and make their home in Southeast Kansas where they raise and train American Quarter Horses. As a student at Emporia State University studying English and journalism, Deborah developed a love for the Flint Hills that has never faded. In writing this series, she hopes to share her passion for one of the last tallgrass prairie regions in the world, showing that God’s great beauty rests on the prairie and in the hearts of those who live there.
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About Seeds of Summer
A heart-warming contemporary romance set in the Flint Hills of Kansas where a former rodeo queen abandons her dreams in order to care for her deceased father’s ranch and her two half-siblings, only to realize with the help of a young new pastor that God can turn even the most dire circumstances into seeds of hope.
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What’s your latest book?
Seeds of Summer released late May 2010 from Zondervan.
What’s your favorite part of the story?
There were many. I always enjoy writing the outdoor scenes in my books, so in Seeds of Summer, I especially enjoyed the fishing and horse-riding scenes. I love trying to find a fresh new way to describe the Flint Hills to my readers, and I hope I’ve done that for them. I also enjoyed writing the ending, which brought tears to my eyes.
Sounds like a great summer read! What was the hardest part to write?
For the longest time, I didn’t know how to end my story. Then about a month before my deadline, it came to me like a clanging cymbal. Also, there were a few plot twists created by my secondary characters—Libby and Tom—who never wanted to go in the direction I’d outlined for them.
Gotta love those willful characters–and those bolts of inspiration. What do you hope your readers will get out of the story?
I’d like readers to remember how important family relations are and that we can get through our difficulties if we remember to love and forgive each other. I also hope to give my readers a taste of the Flint Hills and of how God’s beauty rests on the prairie and in the hearts of those who live there.
Is there a theme to this book?
When the story begins, Natalie has lost both her parents, so obviously dealing with grief is one theme in the story. What surprised me is that Natalie needed to deal with her mother’s death, which happened when she was a little girl. It surprised me that she’d carried it for so long without coming to terms with it.
Sounds like she’s deeper than you first expected her to be–I love it when characters do that to me, too! What would your dream office look like—and what does your REAL writing environment look like?
I used to write in my kitchen but in recent years, I moved my office to our bedroom where I can shut the door on noise. I have allotted 1/3 of this room to my office with a comfy chair as well as a desk and shelves, file c
abinet, etc. All I need for working.
As for my dream office, I actually have a house plan that I keep at my desk (as a means of hope & motivation.) It includes an office with lots of windows, space enough for a love seat, chair and coffee table, as well as a large desk and a wall of shelves. The office door is glass so I will always be aware of what’s going on outside that room. Some day, maybe…
Hey, build me one of those too! 😉 Is there any one thing or reference you keep handy when writing? Anything you kept around for this particular book?
I always have my leather notebook (made by my husband) with all my story notes inside; a favorite pen; a story board on a bulletin directly above my desk with pictures of my characters, their homes, a map of Diamond Falls, and many other visual references; a candle; a few research books within arms’ reach. I tend to use a Merriam-Webster dictionary on my computer, but also have the hard cover books on a shelf next to my desk. Another writing prompt that I use is movie soundtracks. For the Seasons of the Tallgrass series, I’ve especially enjoyed Open Range, The Horse Whisperer, and Legends of the Fall.
Your husband made you a leather notebook?? What a guy! What lessons have you learned through the publication process that you wouldn’t have guessed as a pre-published writer?
I’ve been surprised at how much time marketing takes. As aspiring authors, we’re told that you have to market, and yes, that it takes a lot of your time, but oh my goodness . . . I never quite expected it to take so much time from my writing schedule. I had always thought that I was good at multi-tasking, but when it comes to marketing and writing, I have to do one or the other—I haven’t figured out a good way to do them both. Maybe the best idea is to set aside one or two days a week to do “only marketing.” I’m not sure…I’m still working on that one.
So aside from writing, what takes up most of your time?
Marketing and promoting the series, updating social networks & my blog, and of course, our family and home. We live in the country and have a large garden and yard as well as animals to care for. And then of course there is the daily work involved with being self-employed.
What are you writing right now?
I’m currently finishing up the third book in the series, Blades of Autumn, which is the story about Clara, the owner of Clara’s Café.
Here’s a blurb for Book #3: With a café to run and three children to raise, Clara Lambert doesn’t have time for men or loneliness, despite what her heart might tell her. When two handsome cowboys vie for her attention, one of the brothers proves to be her soul mate, but at what cost? Will it tear the brothers’ relationship apart or is blood really thicker than water?
After that, I’m hoping for another contract—on the fourth book in this series (Winters Frosty Path), or possibly another series.
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Thanks for visiting, Deborah! Readers, check out her website at www.DeborahVogts.com and her blog at www.deborahvogts.blogspot.com.
You can purchase Seeds of Summer at Amazon or CrossPurposes.
Void where prohibited. Entry into the contest is considered verification of eligibility based on your local laws. Contest ends 7/15/10. Winner will have two weeks to claim book.
by Roseanna White | Jul 8, 2010 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Don’t forget you have a chance to win Stray Drop at www.ShannonVannatter.com!
The last time my family took a vacation was September ’08, when Rowyn was 7 months old. Last summer we just couldn’t take the time–and this summer we expected to be crammed full of travel for book promotion.
But since the Life & Faith Tour was canceled because of the extreme weather this summer, my hubby looked at me two weeks ago and said, “So when are we going to the beach?” In an act of semi-spontaneity, we scheduled a vacation 10 days before said vacation would start. Which is now only two days away. Woo hoo!
Of course, I’ve yet to start packing, though I’ve started making lists. And I’ve been trying to get done all the stuff I need to (including blog posts for next week, since I already had two interviews scheduled). Plus, I’ve been getting back on the writing horse. Yesterday I managed 4,800 words, and I feel like I’m finally in that place where finishing the book’s going to be like falling down the stairs–a series of boom, bang, booms, all downhill from here. There’s still a lot of story to get through, don’t get me wrong, but it’s all action. Yay!
I’m one of those nuts who hopes for lots of writing time on vacation (the beach is just so inspiring!). Granted, I also want lots of nothing-time, lots of beach-time, some shopping-time, walking-time . . .
Naturally, it’s calling for rain all week. Isolated, so it could totally miss us. And even if it doesn’t . . . well, it’s true what they say. “A bad day at the beach beats a good day anywhere else.” =)
r Amanda Flower, a native of Akron, Ohio, started her writing career in elementary school when she read a story she wrote to her sixth grade class and had the class in stitches with her description of being stuck on the top of a Ferris wheel. She knew at that moment she’d found her calling of making people laugh with her words. Like her main character India Hayes, Amanda is an academic librarian for a small college near Cleveland. When she is not at the Library or writing her next mystery, she is an avid traveler who has been to seventeen countries, forty-eight U.S. states, and counting. Maid of Murder is her debut novel and the first in a series featuring amateur sleuth India Hayes. Amanda is also currently seeking a publisher for her middle-grade children’s mystery, The Mystery of the First Andora. She lives and writes near Akron.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.