By Liz, so delighted to welcome LynDee Walker back to the blog! She’s celebrating her new release, The General’s Gold, the first book in the new Turner and Mosley Files series co-written with the also-amazing Bruce Robert Coffin. I can’t wait for her to tell you all about it. Take it away, LynDee! The human brain has always fascinated me—I think that borderline obsession is one of the reasons I wanted to be a writer in the first place, really. Why do people do the things they do? Is sort a central question in many novels, particularly mysteries. Fiction gives us the opportunity to live many l ..read more

By Liz, currently organizing files on a new laptop… I had to buy a new laptop recently, which gave me a chance to eliminate the INSANE amount of files that had taken up residence on my old one, the result of six years of downloading and saving stuff that I would “deal with later.” Sigh. As you can imagine, later never came. So I’m starting fresh and trying to organize what I have and where it should live and eliminating the dupes – apparently I was super paranoid about losing things so I saved them in three clouds, one phsyical backup and multiple locations on the actual computer. In any even ..read more

By Liz – you know how much I love animals, so I love when my guests talk about the furbabies in their own books or lives! Karen Rose Smith, a fellow crazy cat lady (said with the most affection!) joins us today. Take it away, Karen! I never expected to become a crazy cat lady! My husband and I cared for two cats for most of our marriage, but then the parade started.  After we found a baby tuxedo in a bush, Zoie Joy, they kept coming. Two yellow tabbies, Lancelot and Sunnybud, appeared a year apart and lived in and out of our patio room. They had been socialized at some point because ..read more

Jessie: In New Hampshire where the twenty inches of recently fallen snow have almost completely melted! I don’t know if this happens to you, but I seem to experience things on some sort of a looping system. There are waves of work, of leisure, of energetic pursuits, and of inertia. I find there are times when my calendar is filled to the brim with social engagements and other times when I have long stretches of relative quiet. Then, the cycles seem to start over again. Every spring, at just about this time I am overcome with the urge to whittle down the contents of the pantry and the freezer ..read more

By Liz, welcoming our friend Nancy Coco back to the blog! We’re celebrating the release of Three Fudges and a Baby and Nancy is taking us to visit Mackinac Island – a fun getaway! Hi everyone, thanks for having me. I always enjoy visiting. I thought today I’d talk about Mackinac (pronounced mack-in-awe) Island where Allie and gang enjoy the sights and smells of fudge, of course, they are the world’s capital of fudge, popcorn and ice cream. Along with cute little gift shops, jewelry stores, and souvenirs shops. But there is so much more to the Island than Main Street. Many people have never be ..read more

by Julie, figuring out time zones in Seattle I have mentioned my rediscovery of Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series several times ever since I reread The Beekeeper’s Apprentice last fall, followed by the rest of the series. I read them/listened to them first as a reader. Then I relistened to them as a writer. I even bought a copy of Beekeeper’s so that I could mark it up. As a reader, it’s a wonderful series. As a writer, I want to figure out how Laurie pulls it off. When I saw that she was celebrating 30 years of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice being in print with events this year ..read more

By Liz, happy to have Rob Osler on the blog today! Rob is the author of the Hayden & Friends Mysteries – and the first, Devil’s Chew Toy, was nominated for multiple awards. The second in the series, Cirque du Slay, is out now. Cozy readers, like readers of any genre, have certain expectations when picking up a book in the genre. We all know the “cozy” qualities: amateur sleuth, light-hearted tone, and no steamy sex, F-bombs, or bloody violence. “A fun escape from the relentless negativity of the news” is how a cozy reader might describe their preference for the genre. For others, a cozy’s ..read more

by Barb, first post of 2024 from Maine, where there is snow on the ground and the temperature went down to 32 degrees last night. Quite a change from Key West. Here in Portland, we’re in the “Path of Partiality” for the eclipse today, and I am interested to find out what that means. It is appropriate that with Torn Asunder, the 12th book in the Maine Clambake Mystery series, coming in 15 days that this should be (almost certainly) the last post about book 11, Hidden Beneath. In Hidden Beneath an old friend of my protagonist Julia’s mother disappears while out for an afternoon swim. She lives i ..read more

By Liz, happy to welcome Donna Andrews back to the blog! I love that she’s always good for an awesome animal story – and she doesn’t disappoint today talking about seven Pomeranians…take it away, Donna! Recently a reader asked me how many Pomeranians I had, and I had to confess that I don’t have any. No dogs at all, in fact. Then why, the reader asked, are there now seven Pomeranians in your series? And what’s up with those two cute dogs you keep posting pictures of on social media? Ah. Thereby hangs a tale. My brother has two dogs: Ginger, 12, a Shih-tzu, and Maple, 7, a Pomeranian/Bichon mi ..read more

Sherry enjoying the lovely spring weather! I was thinking about things I was grateful for a few days ago and that thought somehow morphed into thinking about things I like. So here goes with the random favorite things: Books – too many to list but I have to shout out A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton and Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky for introducing me to strong female characters in crime fiction. It’s amazing that they both were published in 1982. Exercise – walking outside (although in inclement weather, I’ve been known to walk in the mall before it opens) Games – Wordle, Worldle, Chronoquest ..read more