RAMBLING THOUGHTS ON BEING
AN AUTHOR OF A “COMFORT FOOD “ SERIES
by
CHRISTINE WENGER

First, let me explain that wild title above.  My series for Penguin/Obsidian Books are all cozy mysteries and each one has a comfort food theme.

You might ask, “Hey, Chris, what is COMFORT FOOD? “  Well, dear reader, it is what I’d like to think of is food or sweets that grandma used to make, or mom used to make, or dad always made, or Joe at the diner makes.  It’s your favorite go-to food when you are feeling low and need some comfort.  It’s the way mom makes that sweet potato casserole.  It’s that meatloaf you grew up on.  It’s grandma’s apple pie and now you have the recipe and make it every Thanksgiving for your kids.  And hopefully, one of your kids will make it for their kids.

You might also ask, “Hey, Chris, what’s the setting for your comfort food series?”  Well, dear reader, I picked the perfect setting for my series: a diner!  My character, Trixie Matkowski’s Silver Bullet Diner, located in small town Sandy Harbor, New York, is on the shore of Lake Ontario.

Trixie Matkowski has the same first name as my favorite childhood sleuth, Trixie Belden.  As a kid, you could always find me lying on my bed reading and re-reading Trixie’s adventures. I’d be done with one book, and have the next open so I wouldn’t miss a word.  I’d like to think that Trixie Matkowski is a lot like me.  We have a lot of things in common: love of food and desserts, love of Lake Ontario, small towns, little rental cottages, quirky friends and Polish heritage.

Like Trixie Matkowski, I’ve always been a foodie and love to cook and bake. As for diners, I have my local favorites that have stood the test of time and various owners.  A lot of the old diners, like the Silver Bullet, were fashioned after railroad dining cars.  My grandfather used to work at Onondaga Pottery (which turned into Syracuse China and is now defunct) which made china for various diners, restaurants, and even railroad dining cars.  I have several collectible railroad china pieces, and whenever I use it, I think of where it might have traveled and the dining cars in which it sat.

Friends who have read my books relish in sharing their favorite diners with me.  Oh, the hardship!  Great food and great company.  So, while I should be writing, instead I am eating at various new and old diners.

But my favorite will always be diners like the Silver Bullet, a shiny aluminum establishment from the 1950’s or so, with a grand history and food that comforts.  The smell of coffee permeates the air, and deserts take a ride on a lighted carousel.  The waitresses are friendly and no one rushes you out.

Think of me sitting across from you in a booth with a worn Formica table and red vinyl seats that ergonomically form to my butt.   I’ll be the one eating fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy and buttered corn on the side.

“Of course, Nancy, I’d love desert.  I’ll have a cup of thick black coffee with my apple pie.  Definitely, a la mode.  Vanilla ice cream, please!”

About the Author:

Christine has worked in the criminal justice field for more years than she cares to remember. She has a dual master’s degree in Probation and Parole Studies and Sociology from Fordham University.

Unfortunately, the knowledge gained from way too many years in night school, didn’t prepare her for what she loves to do the most – writing romances and cozy mysteries.

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For Sandy Harbor’s tastiest comfort food, venture to the Silver Bullet Diner. But head next door to the new drive-in theater if you have an appetite for murder….

Trixie Matkowski has a tall order to fill this fall. Aside from dishing out delicious fare at the Silver Bullet during peak fishing season, she’s helping her friend—Antoinette Chloe Brown, or ACB for short—open a drive-in movie theater in the vacant lot beside her diner. It’s just the thing to take ACB’s mind off Nick, her missing biker beau.

But their plans are fried after Nick’s body is discovered during the groundbreaking for the drive-in. And when the police connect the murder weapon to ACB, she becomes the prime suspect in eighty-sixing Nick. With the fate of her innocent friend and her business on the line, Trixie must make the guilty party pay up before someone else gets stiffed….

Amazon/B&N

Jennifer’s Review of Diners, Drive-ins, and Death

Review (4.25 Stars): Trixie has a lot on her plate in this new mystery with running a busy restaurant, helping her friend open a drive-in movie theater and she has also agreed to host the contestants of the Miss Salmon pageant.  While all this is going on, her friend Antoinette Chloe is trying to figure what happened to her boyfriend, who just up and disappeared on her.  When they find his body on the land where she is going to open her drive-in, Antoinette Chloe becomes the prime suspect in his murder.  Trixie doesn’t believe that her friend is a murderer so she is off to find the real killer before everything goes up in smoke.

This is the third book in the Comfort Food mystery series and this book is action-packed for the get go.  Trixie has way too much going on in her life but that is the way she likes it.  She has wonderful friends, a great business and a sexy potential love interest.  I love how loyal Trixie is to the people that she cares about and is willing to do almost anything to help her good friend, Antoinette Chloe.  After everything they have been through together, Trixie is supportive of Antoinette Chloe when she trying to figure out what happened to her boyfriend, Nick.  Finding Nick on the drive-in property was a shock because no one had a clue how he got there or who was looking to hurt him.  Antoinette Chloe is eccentric with a larger than life personality but that is what I love about her.  The mystery was very intriguing and it was easy to fly through the pages  with Ms. Wenger’s humorous writing style. Diners, Drive-ins, and Death has the perfect mixture of thrills, snappy dialogue and delicious down-home style flavor that will have you asking for seconds.

Giveaway

Guest Post for NO GHOULS ALLOWED
by Victoria Laurie

The Sandman

I spent a whole lot of my childhood and perhaps more than a bit of my adulthood being afraid of things that go bump in the night.

Like,…terrified to the point of keeping a light on at all times and sleeping on a platform bed lest some spooky entity be able to crawl under it and stab me in my sleep.  (Hello, Jason, a la Friday the 13th.)

Much of this was born of sensitivity to spooks from early childhood.  My first spook sighting in fact was when I was just three years old.

It started one afternoon after we checked into some old hotel in Pennsylvania.  The hotel was well over a hundred and fifty years old and, over breakfast on the way there, my sister had innocently asked why was it that, when she woke up in the mornings, there was sand in her eyes?

My father had replied that every night, to help her sleep, the Sandman came and dropped a little bit of sand there.

It’s funny to me to retell that part of the story, because, in today’s world, I think I’d hesitate telling my six-year-old daughter that every night some guy carrying a sack of sand visited her while she slept.

Anyhoo, my sister, being the logical type, took explanation in stride.  I have only the vaguest memory of that part of the story – mostly because some kind waitress had set down a plate of strawberry covered pancakes topped with a generous portion of whip cream in front of me.  The rest of the day was lost to a sugar coma, I’m sure.

So, that night my parents tucked my sister and me into the king bed in our suite, and headed off through the door to their suite.  Sandy, my sister, lay way across the bed to my left, and I had the spot closest all the way to the right, by the door.  Sands fell asleep immediately.  I was still wound up a little and drifted only into a light doze.

Shortly after my parents wished us goodnight, I heard the sound of a door closing.  It was soft, no more than a click really, but it made me open my eyes and sit up.  There, at the foot of the bed, was a dark silhouette in the shape of a tall man with a stove-piped hat atop his head.

In the dim light of the room, he had no discernable features; he merely stood there at my feet.  Watching me.

Feeling uneasy I rolled over to my sister’s side.  The man at the end of the bed moved along the foot of the bed with me.  I nudged my sister.

“Whaaaaaat?” she moaned.

“Sandy!  There’s a man in here!”

My sister didn’t lift her head from the pillow.  “It’s the Sandman.  Go back to sleep,” she told me.

I lay back down and rolled back to my side.  The Sandman moved with me.

He continued to stand there, watching me for what felt like an eternity.  So I rolled back to my sister’s side, (the Sandman following me), and nudged her again.  “He won’t go away!” whispered.

“Close your eyes and let him put the sand in,” she advised, still not lifting her head from the pillow.

I remember being very frustrated with her.  I didn’t want the creepy dude with the tall hat coming any closer to me.  I didn’t even want him in the room.  Still, if it would make him go away, I figured I’d give it a try.  So off to the other side I went, with the Sandman in tow, and plunked my head down on the pillow, curling myself into the fetal position.  Closing my eyes tightly, I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nothing happened.

Sneaking a peak, I looked over my shoulder and the Sandman stood there ominously.  It was like I could sense his mean little eyes boring holes into me.  This time I rolled back over to my sister’s side of the bed and kicked her in the leg.  She sat up angrily and was ready to yell at me when she caught sight of the dark silhouette at the end of the bed and began to scream her head off.

Finally!  A reaction I could get behind!  I began to scream too.

My parents rushed into the room, flipping on the lights as they came, and the Sandman vanished.  Poof!  Just like that.  Gone.

We checked out of the hotel early the next morning after my mother shared more than a few angry words with the hotel staff after one of them admitted they’d given us a room that was reportedly haunted.

Since then I’ve had at least a dozen other such encounters – one that shook me so terribly that I couldn’t drive at night for months afterward.

And I never really got over my fears of the dark until I started writing the Ghost Hunter Mysteries.

Writing has always been my therapy, and I can’t think of a better example than how much it’s helped me to write about the scary encounters that M. J., Gilley, and Heath routinely get themselves into.  There’s just something about creating a super scary scene, which is so vivid for you as a writer that you can feel and see and sense everything that your characters are experiencing, except that, in this case, you have absolute control over the outcome.  It establishes a feeling of confidence, and, after nine books in the series, I’d like to say that I’ve completely overcome my fear of the dark.

I realized just how much when I began writing this particular installment, No Ghouls Allowed and introduced a new spook to the scene.  The Sandman.

Did I still get a little creeped out while writing the book?  Definitely.  But it was a good creeped out.  One I had total control over.

Of course, the quart of ice cream I had on hand as comfort food whilst I wrote the book maaaaay have helped too.  🙂

About the Author:

Victoria Laurie is the New York Times bestselling author of over twenty books.  With two series in full swing, Victoria divides her time between The Psychic Eye Mysteries and The Ghost Hunter Mysteries.  As a professional psychic herself, Victoria knows all too well the tricky world of the paranormal in which her protagonists psychic Abby Cooper, and spiritual medium M. J. Holliday tackle murder, mayhem, and the occasional demon with plenty of plucky humor and determination.

On a trip to Georgia to see her father, M. J. Holliday finds herself trapped in a haunted mansion and discovers…

THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN—FROM THE DEAD

M.J. has had a distant relationship with her father since her mother died more than two decades ago. But when M.J., her boyfriend, Heath, and BFF, Gilley, take a break from their show, Ghoul Getters, and visit her family home in Valdosta, Georgia, they find Montgomery Holliday a changed man. The source of his happiness seems to be his new fiancée, the charming Christine Bigelow.

But despite the blush of new love, Montgomery and Christine are dealing with a big problem in the form of the antebellum mansion she is having renovated. After a series of strange accidents, the work crew is convinced the place is cursed, and the contractor has walked off the job. At Christine’s request, M.J. and her pals agree to find out if they’re really dealing with some spirited saboteurs and a possessed plantation home.

Amazon/B&N

Jennifer’s Review of No Ghouls Allowed

Review (5 Stars): I absolutely love this series!!!!  I can never get enough of M.J., Heath and Gil and I impatiently count the days until there is a new book in the series.  In No Ghouls Allowed, M.J. returns home to Georgia to spend time with her estranged father and his new fiancée, Christine. While there, they discover that Christine’s home is being renovated and she is having a problem keeping the construction crews from walking off the job. They investigate to see what is happening at the house and what they encounter is a dark, destructive evil that they have never experienced before.

Ms. Laurie does an amazing job keeping this mystery series fresh and exciting and has made me a fan for life.  I loved going back to Georgia with the gang and learning more about M.J.’s life as a child. It helped me see how M.J. has grown as a character and how her past has shaped her to be the wonderful, stubborn and loyal person that she is. I have to say that I would like Christine to be my future step-mom because you can tell that she has a warm accepting personality and she was just the person to bring M.J. and her father closer together.  No Ghouls Allowed is a fun, exciting, ghost-hunting thrill ride that will keep you laughing until the wee hours and now I will have to wait not so patiently until I can meet up with these characters again.

Giveaway

I’m excited to give away a copy of No Ghouls Allowed. This giveaway is for US Residents only.  To be entered in the drawing by January 25th, please leave me a comment below:

With a needle and thread, Harlow Jane Cassidy is capable of magic. Her neighbors in Bliss, Texas, on the other hand, are capable of murder….

Any garment Harlow stitches together has the power to grant the deepest desire of whomever wears it. So when she’s asked to sew aprons for a local women’s group, Harlow must get to know each member. First up is Delta Lee Mobley, who doesn’t care much for Harlow’s family—or anyone else in Bliss, for that matter. Granting Delta’s greatest wish could only lead to trouble….

But trouble finds Delta all the same. The day after Harlow delivers her apron, Delta’s body is discovered in the cemetery. It seems one of the townsfolk harbored ill will toward one of their own. Harlow’s sleuthing skills are a cut above the rest, and with a few magical tricks up her sleeve, she is determined to cuff this killer once and for all.

Amazon/B&N

About the Author:

Melissa Bourbon, who sometimes answers to her Latina-by-marriage name Misa Ramirez, is a middle school teacher by day, and a writer by night. She lives lives in an inspiring century old house in North Texas and loves being surrounded by real-life history.  She fantasizes about spending summers writing in quaint, cozy locales, has a love/hate relationship with yoga and chocolate, is devoted to her family, and can’t believe she’s lucky enough to be living the life of her dreams.

She is the author of the Lola Cruz Mystery series, as well as A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series. She also has written two romantic suspense novels, a light paranormal romance, and is the co-author of The Tricked-out Toolbox, a practical marketing guide for authors.

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Jennifer’s Review of A Seamless Murder

Review (4 Stars): What a spellbinding series! Harlow is working on a new project in this mystery where she has been asked to sew aprons for the Red Hat Society dinner party. While she is trying to come up with the perfect design for each apron, the leader of the Red Hat Society is found dead in the local cemetery.  Harlow must now use her sleuthing skills to track down a killer before they decide to add another victim to their list.

A Seamless Murder is the sixth book in the Magical Dressmaking series and I am completely enchanted by this series.  Harlow is a great character that has the wonderful ability to create the perfect designs for people based on her magical abilities.  She gets a vision of what fabrics would look great on a person and then she is able to make that design come to life.  With this mystery, Harlow has the job of sewing several aprons in a short amount of time, when the body of Delta Mobley is found in the cemetery.  Delta’s family hasn’t cared much for the Cassidy clan, so Harlow had hoped that this assignment would make amends between the two families and it is a bit of shock to find that Delta has been killed.

I liked how Ms. Bourbon has the ability to create an intriguing mystery that has the right amount of plot twists and turns that will keep people guessing. For me, Harlow has grown so much as a character and I loved to see how far her relationship with Will has come over the course of the series.  The ending of this book made me very happy and I want to see what happens next with Harlow and Will in the next installment of this series.

Giveaway

Questions readers asked Beverly Allen about the Bridal Bouquet Shop Series

How did you come up with the characters? Are they based loosely on some folks you know?

Perhaps I had a little inspiration. Audrey Bloom’s Grandma Mae is patterned loosely after my own wonderful grandmother. But that’s probably the closest parallel. Much of the character development starts with Audrey. She’s really the girl next door, or at least that’s what I was aiming for. She doesn’t have it all figured out, but she’s getting there. She has a bit of a romantic streak, especially shown in her love of flowers and for the language of flowers, but it’s balanced with an inherent practicality, normal insecurities, and just a tinge of residual angst, so she’s not so idealistic and sentimental that her feet ever leave the ground.

Where the other people come from is a little more complicated. It’s hard to create a person out of thin air. Some characters, like her cousin Liv, have helped Audrey become the person she is. Others might be antagonistic. Just like real life. A few might have been inspired by real people I knew or people I wish I knew, mixing and matching traits and details, kind of like playing Mr. Potato Head with your friends and family.
The cats, however, are definitely patterned after my cats.

Did you always know a lot about flowers? Or did you learn it for the series?

True confession: Because of some pretty severe allergies, flowers were never really my thing. I had a crash course when I first started writing the series. Since part of Audrey’s charm is that she likes to create bouquets based on the language of flowers, I started a Pinterest page to keep track of the meanings. That helped me learn to recognize a number of unfamiliar flower varieties.

A couple of very nice florists allowed me to hang around their shops for a while and answered a lot of my newbie questions, and there’s a lovely lady at my church who used to run her own flower shop. She reads over the novels before I turn them in. She says I made the flower shop pretty realistic, except maybe a little more pleasant than the norm. She’d love to work with Audrey and Liv!

Besides all the online references and books, I also was able to sign up for a floral design course offered by a local florist to get some hands-on practice. Considering the allergies, that was fun. I was wearing gloves, since sap of some flowers will give me welts, and by the time the class was over, my eyes were burning and I could barely see to drive home. It did, however, give me the inspiration for a character, a police chief with intense allergies to flowers. And for some reason (wink), all the murders in Ramble, Virginia, now take place in the presence of lots of flowers.

What is a day in your writing life like? What is your process?

Well, this is a little embarrassing. Let me first say that a couple of years ago, after my daughter vacated her bedroom, I took the opportunity to repurpose the room into a proper office: floor to ceiling bookshelves (jam-packed with mysteries and my writing and reference books), a daybed (perfect for reading), a sleek glass desk, laser printer, and a display board where I can pin up maps or plots or things I want to keep handy. I imagined long hours in my comfy desk chair, typing away.

Well, that room sits unused, for the most part. Because here’s what really happens:

I wake up half comatose and use the wall to guide myself down the stairs and to the Keurig. I watch a few minutes of the morning news and check email and Facebook. Generally, there’s something waiting on my DVR, so I catch up on that while the caffeine is kicking in. After breakfast and a little more procrastination, I’ll sink into an overstuffed leather chair in my family room, put my feet up, and get to pounding the keys of my laptop.

I tend to plot ahead of time, but my characters don’t always obey my outlines. I write in segments, and I aim for about 500 words in a segment. On busy days, or when I’m struggling with a section, I might only get 500 words in. Most days, however, I try for at least 1,000. But when the words are coming easily and quickly, or if a deadline is looming, I try to capitalize on this by adding segments. I think my record high was about 7,000.

In between segments are usually breaks for coffee, food, maybe a little housework, sometimes a mental break with a game or a program on television. (I’m watching through the Gilmore Girls at the moment.)

For those interested in the details, I generally do not have music on while I write, but when I do, it tends to be instrumental because lyrics distract me. My beverages of choice are decaf coffee, sweetened and with chocolate soymilk, and water with a splash of cranberry juice. And I’m definitely a pajama writer. Only after I’ve finished my writing for the day will I shower and dress. Personally, I think that is one of the biggest perks of the writing life.

About the Author:

Barbara Early (A.K.A. Beverly Allen) grew up buried in the snowy suburbs of Buffalo, NY, where she developed a love for all things sedentary: reading, writing, classic movies, and Facebook Scrabble. She holds a degree in Electrical Engineering, but her penchant for the creative caused her to run away screaming from the pocket-protector set.

She taught secondary English and science for several years before home schooling her daughter successfully through high school. Barbara cooks up cozy mysteries with a healthy dose of comedy and sometimes a splash of romance.

When not reading or writing, she enjoys cooking, crafts, home-improvement projects, and spending time with her husband and daughter.

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Florist Audrey Bloom, co-owner of the Rose in Bloom, creates fragrant bouquets for brides. But when a wedding goes fatally wrong, it’s up to Audrey to sniff out a killer . . .

Everything is coming up roses for Audrey when her dazzling creations are picked to be featured on a wedding reality show. The hot series is filming an episode about a bride who’s bonkers for bells, and Audrey’s bouquets of campanulas, calla lilies, and Bells-of-Ireland are perfect for the bridal theme.

But Audrey’s debut quickly becomes a hothouse of trouble. Her ex, Brad, shows up as a crew member on the show, threatening her blossoming relationship with Nick the baker. To make matters worse, when one of the show’s hosts is found dead in the bell tower of a historic church, all the evidence points toward Brad.

Now Audrey needs to weed out the real killer before someone else’s chance at stardom is permanently nipped in the bud . . .

Amazon/B&N

Jennifer’s Review of For Whom The Bluebell Tolls

Review (4.5 Stars): Audrey Bloom has the amazing ability to create beautiful bouquets while understanding the meaning of each flower that will be the perfect addition to the bridal theme. Audrey soon discovers that her shop is chosen to appear on the reality show, Fix My Wedding and Audrey is excited to be a part of her favorite television guilty pleasure.  But when one of the hosts is found dead and her ex-boyfriend is blamed for the murder, she must find a killer before her screen debut is permanently cancelled.

This is the second book in the Bridal Bouquet Shop mystery series and I was captivated by the characters in this well-written cozy mystery. I loved the reality show aspect in this mystery because it made the story exciting and fun and kept things moving right along.  The mystery itself had several plot twists and turns, which made For Whom The Bluebell Tolls a delightful addition to this enchanting series.  Looking forward to reading more about Audrey Bloom and her dazzling flower shop in the future.

Giveaway

I’m excited to give away a copy of For Whom The Bluebell Tolls. This giveaway is for US Residents only.  To be entered in the drawing by January 21st, please leave me a comment below:

Sisters Lucinda and Ricarda Ricardo—better known as Lucy and Rikki—are at each other’s throats over the family business, Roble Foods. Lucy wants to sell and Rikki is against it. Rikki asks medium Emma Whitcastle to contact their deceased father, Felix, to help her convince Lucy not to sell, but the ghost of Felix Ricardo has his own bombshell to drop. Now it’s up to Emma and the ghost of Granny Apples to chip away at the mystery and stop a killer from double dipping in death.

Amazon/B&N

About the Author:

Sue Ann Jaffarian is the author of the popular Odelia Grey mystery series, the Ghost of Granny Apples mystery series and the Madison Rose vampire mysteries, as well as short stories.

Like the character Odelia Grey, Sue Ann Jaffarian is a middle-aged, plus-sized paralegal. She lives in Los Angeles with her two cats, B and Raffi.

In addition to writing, Sue Ann is sought after as a motivational/ humorous speaker. You can visit her on the web at www.sueannjaffarian.blogspot.com.

Website/Facebook

Jennifer’s Review of Ghost in the Guacamole

Review (5 Stars): Emma Whitecastle is asked to consult on a new case involving two sisters that are at odds with each other about selling a family restaurant business.  Emma has been asked to contact their deceased father and seek his advice on keeping the business while another wants to sell it to the highest bidder.  What Emma finds out is that their deceased father wants them to sell and his untimely death wasn’t an accident but murder.  Now Emma and her ghostly sidekick, Granny Apples, must find a killer quickly before they make murder a family affair.

This is the fifth book in the Ghost of Granny Apples mystery series and I have to say this one is a winner.  I was immediately sucked into the story and didn’t look up until I was almost done with the book.  Emma is a fun, likable character and Granny Apples always seems to steal the spotlight with her sharp wit and entertaining dialogue.  The mystery was complex and engaging and I think that Ghost in the Guacamole is one of my favorite mysteries so far this year.  Can’t wait to read more adventures of Emma and Granny Apples because I know that it will be a fun, entertaining thrill-ride.

Giveaway