When readers ask where I get my story ideas, I feel compelled to tell them the truth (mostly). So I cringe inwardly and repeat the dreadful cliche: “Sometimes, from my dreams.” I generally think of myself as an upbeat, even flippant, person. But I do suffer from time to time with vivid nightmares. And sometimes …
Contemporary cozy author Rachael Rawlings recently asked me to contribute to a profile post, along with several other women writers. The theme was starting a fiction career after age forty. I shared with her my own career change and in particular, the woman who made me consider it possible: New Zealand’s Queen of Crime, Ngaio …
…or rather, Tey for four. I’ve been on an author binge this summer, and I don’t regret a single minute of it. After reading Nicola Upson’s marvellous mindbender An Expert in Murder, I went out collecting original Josephine Teys, to refresh my memory on her effortless, masterful style. My first find was her 1950 novel, To Love and …
If you came here from my Facebook post, April Fool! If not, you can read the blurb HERE Thanks for playing along. Why not help prank your friends by liking and sharing the Facebook post? If you want to read some real Mottley stories, you can pick up “Mister Mottley and the Key of D” free …
Warning: Nicola Upson will mess with your mind, and make you like it. This brain-bending story forces you to question reality, but not because of the mystery plot. An Expert in Murder is structured as a classic whodunnit. No, it’s Upson’s choice of character and setting that will send you into a Blair-Witch style guessing game of “did …
Ask and you shall receive. I’ve heard cat lovers speak of “Cat Central,” a mystical agency that assigns cats to their destined homes, often by opaque or circuitous chains of cause and effect. Sometimes I think there’s a version of this for books and authors, bringing a certain volume into your hands at just the …
Review: Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d by Alan Bradley Read More »
Honestly, I tried. November – February is its own liturgical season at my house: the Unending Feast of St. Cadbury. We roll straight from Thanksgiving to a birthday, Christmas, two more birthdays, Valentine’s Day and yet another birthday. It’s a lot of parties, a lot of travel, a lot of cleanup, and a lot of chocolate. …
“There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.” –P.G. Wodehouse Maia Chance and I are going to be very good friends. Don’t worry, I haven’t gone stalkery. But when I opened Teetotaled and saw a P.G. Wodehouse quote as the epigraph, I knew I’d just made two new …
This week I received a fantastic opportunity to attend the Birmingham Gun Show, sponsored by the Alabama Gun Collectors Association. With the support and assistance of one of the Association’s Directors, Brent B. Goodwin, LTC (Ret), I’ll be requesting video interviews with vintage gun collectors to enlighten me — and you — about the real …
The Golden Age writers toyed with various sets of rules of “fair play.” The oath of the famous “Detection Club,” which boasted Christie and Sayers in its membership, was: Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow …