SPOTLIGHT ON PEG COCHRAN/MARGARET LOUDON #GIVEAWAY

 

I’ve done a few of these now and I’ve been puzzling over how to make this Spotlight different.  I could tell you that my 31^st book, Where the Bodies Are Berried, #10 in my Cranberry Cove Series, just came out.  I still can’t believe I get to write books let alone thirty-one!  My first books were published by what was then Berkeley Prime Crime.  The logo was a bloody handprint on the spine.  I remember going in bookstores on my lunch hour, seeing those books and thinking one day I want my name on one of those.  I can’t believe it’s actually come true!

 

And now, I thought I’d do a Q&A highlighting a few things about my various books.

 

Favorite Series I’ve Written:  My Murder, She Reported series.  It’s set in New York City in 1938.  Researching the details for the books was so much fun—finding a floor plan for the Waldorf Astoria Hotel so I would know where the ladies room was on the ballroom floor (where my victim is murdered);  pouring over details of the 1939 New York World’s Fair including the pool where Billy Rose staged his Aquacade musical (and where my victim is found dead, floating in the water) ; reading all about the “Long Island Express” the terrible storm that took the east coast by surprise causing untold damage and loss of life (and nearly covering up the murder of my victim).

 

 

Favorite Research Trip:  Visiting a cranberry farm in South Haven, MI to witness a cranberry harvest firsthand for my Cranberry Cove Series.  I also startled the tour guide when I asked him what they would do if a body floated up in the bog!

 

 

Favorite Character:  Impossible to pick!  I love all my characters and can’t single out a favorite.  That would be like asking which of my children was my favorite.

 

Series That Made Me Laugh:  My Lucille Series actually made me laugh out loud on occasion as I put my character Lucille Mazzarella in humorous situations.

 

 

Series That Allowed Me to Travel:  My Open Book Series written as Margaret Loudon, although it was only armchair travel to England.  And I wouldn’t have been able to visit my setting, the town of Upper Chumley-on-Stoke, since it was purely fictional.  

 

 

Most Unusual Murder Method: In Steamed to Death from my Gourmet De-Lite Series, the victim is drugged and trapped in an overheating steam cabinet.

 

Now for my question for you:  what is your favorite location to visit vicariously through the books you read? 

 

 

GIVEAWAY! 

 I am giving away one e-book copy of Where the Bodies Are Berried to one person who comments below--what is your favorite location to visit vicariously through the books you read?

 

 

  

 

When a wealthy local benefactor is slain on the farm, Monica has to figure out who wanted to cash in on the killing . . .

As Sassamanash Farms hunkers down for the long winter, Monica agrees to let the local animal shelter host their Christmas-themed fundraiser there. The draw of the event—a chance to have your pet’s picture taken with Santa—brings in animal lovers from far and wide. But when the crackling fire dies down and the festive holiday props are all carted away, Monica discovers a very un-jolly sight next to the barn—the dead body of one of the shelter’s biggest donors. With the farm’s good name in jeopardy, Monica goes to work to root out the killer.

By all accounts the victim was a charming and generous supporter of the shelter, but Monica discovers that he was loathed by those who knew him for being tight-fisted and unscrupulous. Suspecting money might be the motive, she turns her sights on his stylish wife and her lavish lifestyle, along with the manager of the struggling shelter, who stood to collect a hefty bequest from his will. But as Monica closes in on one final clue, the culprit closes in on her. Caught unawares, she’ll have to survive the brutal winter weather, as well as a cold-blooded killer . . . 

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A former Jersey girl, Peg now resides in Michigan with her husband. She is the author of numerous cozy mystery series including the Open Book (writing as Margaret Loudon), Murder, She Reported, Cranberry Cove, the Farmer's Daughter, Gourmet De-Lite, the Lucille series and Sweet Nothings Lingerie (written as Meg London). When she’s not writing, you’ll find her either cooking, reading or spoiling her granddaughters and grandson.

 

Spotlight on Leslie Budewitz and All God's Sparrows -- a trek back in time

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  Whoa! It's bright in here, with the Mystery Lovers' Kitchen Spotlight turned on me! Must be all the fairy lights and holiday candles shining, as we wend our way through the darkest part of the year in the northern hemisphere.

I love writing about Christmas -- I’ve written two Christmas mysteries, one in each series, plus a short holiday mystery. More about them in my last two posts, including this Christmas Cookie Roundup and this recipe for yummy Medjool Date Turtles. 

So with 16 published cozy mysteries, all safely tucked in the food-loving world, what prompted me to take a totally different path with my latest book, All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection?

The collage I made while writing "A Bitter Wind,"
the novella that anchors the collection. 

The same thing, really. Passion. My family came to Montana in waves, from 1915 to 1952. I was born and raised here, and though I left for a while – I went to college in Seattle and spent my young adult years there – I am deeply passionate about the place and its history.

I don’t remember how I first learned about Mary Fields, but I do know that like so many, I was instantly fascinated. Mary was born into slavery in Tennessee in about 1832 – she never knew the year or day, but chose to celebrate it on March 15. In her later years, she threw a party for herself and invited the children of the town of Cascade. Montana, where she lived from 1895 until her death in 1914. 

In 1870, Mary worked as a cabin attendant on the steamship Robert E. Lee, which plied the Mississippi River. From there, she went to work in the household of Judge Edmund Dunne of Akron, Ohio. That’s where she met his youngest sister, Sarah Theresa, an Ursuline nun better known as Sister Amadeus, later Mother Amadeus – the Mother Superior of the order, who were primarily teachers.

In 1884, Amadeus and a group of nuns came to Montana Territory at the request of the Jesuits to start schools for girls at their missions, both white and Indian girls. In early 1885, while starting up the schools at St. Peter’s Mission west of the small town of Cascade in central Montana, Amadeus became deathly ill with pneumonia. Mary and three nuns came west, by train, steamboat, and stage, to nurse her. They succeeded.

St. Peter's Mission, taken before 1908

And Mary stayed. 

In those early years, Mary fished, hunted, grew a garden, raised chickens, and hauled people and freight by wagon. She did, one of the nuns wrote, “everything we couldn’t do ourselves.” She was an integral part of their community, and of mission life.

All was not easy, though. Life on the untamed prairie was hard. Prejudice came west with the settlers. Mary was “overbearing and troublesome,” to quote an entry in the nuns' annals. There were clashes. Contrary to the myth, no shots were fired. But in 1894, the bishop ordered Amadeus to dismiss Mary from the Mission, and decreed that the Ursulines have no more contact with her.

Mary moved into Cascade, ten miles away, and opened a restaurant. When it failed – cooking was one thing; running a business another – that crafty Amadeus arranged for her to get the mail route between Cascade and the mission, making her the first African-American woman in the country to do so and leading to her nickname, “Stagecoach Mary.”  Mary delivered the mail until 1904, when she retired, taking in laundry and babysitting local children -- including the future actor, Gary Cooper, who grew up in Cascade.

Mary Fields, ca. 1897 (studio portrait)

I think Mary is appealing because she brings together three aspects of the history of the American West that are inherently intriguing: the Black experience during westward expansion after the Civil War, the missionary era, and the woman on her own. Too, she’s been the subject of much myth-making, even caricature, that I wanted to explore and counter. I took the stories of her big heart and amplified them, using my research and my own heart. 

And it turns out that many of the same themes echo through my stories, no matter which shelf you find them on in the bookstore: women’s lives and choices, especially in times when society imposed great restraints; women’s friendships; the search for justice and the nature of forgiveness; how our physical surroundings, the landscape, influences us. 

The result: three short stories and a novella, each with a mystery slant, telling stories of the forgotten past. Remembering matters. And I know each of you knows the power of story to open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts. 

I hope you’ll take the trek back in time, with Mary and me. 

Plus -- look at all these holiday books by all of us here at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen!

ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook 

Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.  

“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

TO ERR IS CUMIN:A Spice Shop Mystery (Seventh St. Books, out now in paper, ebook, and audio)

From the cover: One person’s treasure is another’s trash. . .

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, wants nothing more than to live a quiet life for a change, running her shop and working with customers eager to spice up their cooking. But when she finds an envelope stuffed with cash in a ratty old wingback left on the curb, she sets out to track down the owner.

Pepper soon concludes that the chair and its stash may belong to young Talia Cook, new in town and nowhere to be seen. Boz Bosworth, an unemployed chef Pepper’s tangled with in the past, shows up looking for the young woman, but Pepper refuses to help him search. When Boz is found floating in the Ship Canal, only a few blocks from Talia’s apartment, free furniture no longer seems like such a bargain.

On the hunt for Talia, Pepper discovers a web of connections threatening to ensnare her best customer. The more she probes, the harder it gets to tell who’s part of an unsavory scheme of corruption—and who might be the next victim.

Between her quest for an elusive herb, helping her parents remodel their new house, and setting up the Spice Shop’s first cooking class, Pepper’s got a full plate. Dogged by a sense of obligation to find the rightful owner of the hidden treasure, she keeps on showing up and asking questions.

One mistake, and she could find herself cashing out. . .

Available at Amazon  * Barnes & Noble  * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * And your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. 

A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.

Spotlight on Peg Cochran/Margaret Loudon

 

Odd Things You Might Not Know About Me

At a Newcomer welcome meeting recently (we’re newcomers of 22 years lol) we gave a fact about ourselves that no one might know. One of our most diminutive members was a champion javelin thrower in college and another one of our quieter members was a runner-up in a Tammy Faye Baker look-alike contest. It was fascinating hearing all the stories.  We're like the characters in our books--full of secrets and unknown experiences although mostly harmless in our case!

But then I had to think of something. Many people already know I write books so I didn’t think that would fly. But I’m so dull, the small voice in my head said. If only I lived the life of one of my protagonists, solving crimes, running businesses, saving people.

 

So, I settled on the fact that I’ve been in three television commercials. The company I worked for (in marketing communications) wanted to advertise their hospice services and I volunteered to be the “patient.” The make-up artist touched up my make-up, but in the end all you saw of me in the first two ads was my hands! Finally, in the third ad, I was visible from a distance…for about two seconds.

Later I thought of something else that might have been fun. I lived in NYC and many times I walked down Fifth Avenue to my office. It turned out the timing coincided with the routine of actor Roy Scheider who was on his way back to his apartment after a run. I was quite thrilled to spot him and after several weeks of passing each other every day, he began to wave to me!

I once walked out of the subway in the middle of a sweltering summer day to be surrounded by people dressed in coats, hats and gloves. I thought I’d fallen down the rabbit hole until someone yelled “get her off he set” and I spotted Al Pacino. Alas, my walk-on was scrapped in the cutting room.

While I’ve never followed the clues to unmask a murderer or tangled with a killer in real life, I’ve still had a few fun experiences! And who knows? One of these days, they might find their way into one of my plots.  What about you? Is there something about you that no one might know?

I'd love to give away an e-book of book #9, the latest in my Cranberry Cove Series

--A Berry Suspicious Death--to someone who leaves a comment on my post! (US Only, please include your email so I can contact you.)

 A Berry Suspicious Death is now out!

 

    AMAZON

BARNES & NOBLE    

 

Weddings are murder in the new Cranberry Cove Mystery from USA Today bestselling author Peg Cochran!

The cranberry bogs at Sassamanash Farms have never looked more festive than when Monica’s half-brother celebrates his wedding there. It’s a genuinely joyous occasion, and even greeting a strange assortment of guests and witnessing a heated argument can’t spoil Monica’s mood. But that all changes when one of the guests is found murdered at the reception—and then one of Monica’s employees is accused of doing the deed to get his hands on the dead woman’s money.

It doesn’t take long for Monica to discover that the victim had amassed her fortune by marrying a very wealthy—and very ill—older man. What’s more, the old man’s daughters despised the scheming, gold-digging woman, and thought the inheritance money should have been theirs. That seems like motive enough for murder, but Monica suspects there’s more to this case than simple greed. With her employee in hot water and time running out, Monica will have to act fast to catch the killer, before a case that started with a family wedding ends with her own funeral . ..

AMAZON

                BARNES & NOBLE

 

 

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Peg Cochran is the author of the Open Book Series (writing as Margaret Loudon), the Cranberry Cove Series, the Murder, She Repored series, the Farmer's Daughter Series, the Lucille series and the Sweet Nothings Lingerie Series (writing as Meg London.)

Spotlight on Molly MacRae – Trivia and a #Giveaway #SpotlightSunday

It’s my turn in the Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen spotlight, again, so let’s have some fun with MM trivia. There’s one correct answer for each question. 

Don't worry about getting the answers right. Just let me know your favorite question and answer in the comments for a chance to win one of three copies of Come Shell or High Water, book #1 in my new Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries. I’ll choose winners around noon on Tuesday 6/25.

MM Trivia

(You'll find the answers below.)

 

1.      What’s the most out-of-the-blue surprising thing a reader did after reading my Haunted Yarn Shop mystery series?

A.     Named a racehorse after the yarn shop

B.     Opened a haunted yarn shop with its own ghost

C.    Named their new baby girl Geneva after the ghost

D.    Painted a portrait of Geneva the ghost

 

2.      What’s the most surprising place one of my books has been mentioned?

A.     In a menu at a café in Scotland

B.     On the local six o’clock news

C.    In Murder, She Wrote: Domestic Malice by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain

D.    During a funeral for a museum curator

 

3.      What do I love about freshwater mussels?

A.     Their beautiful shells

B.     Their freshwater pearls

C.    Their names

D.    Their role in alerting us to changing environmental conditions  

 

4.      What are my brother Andy and I doing in this pile of leaves?

A.     Having lunch

B.     Waking up from a nap

C.    Staying out of the way while the rest of the family rakes

D.    As budding mystery writers would, we’re looking for clues

 

5.      Why is this dog reading Plaid and Plagiarism book #1 in my Highland Bookshop Mystery series?

A.     He has an audience of puppies listening to every word

B.     He misses Scotland

C.    He’s in the book

D.    He’s killing time before his appointment at the vet

 

6.      What kind of pet traveled the farthest with her reader fan to visit me?

A.     Llama

B.     Chicken

C.    Hedgehog

D.    Iguana

 

7.      I play the bagpipes like a pro.

A.     True

B.     Kind of true

C.    Absolutely and completely false

 

8.      I knit like a pro.

A.     True

B.     Kind of true

C.    Absolutely and completely false

 

9.      I cook like a pro.

A.     True

B.     Kind of true

C.    Absolutely and completely false

 

10.  I can sing Old MacDonald in Gaelic.

A.     True

B.     Kind of true

C.    Absolutely and completely false

 

Answers:

1. The answer is A – there’s an honest to goodness racehorse out there named Weaver’s Cat because a reader likes the books so much.

2. The answer is C – in Murder, She Wrote: Domestic Malice by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain, Jessica reads my book Lawn Order before bed.

3. All the answers are true to some extent, but the real answer is C for me and for Maureen Nash, the amateur sleuth in Come Shell or High Water. We love the names like Fatmucket, Sheepnose, Higgin’s Eye, and Purple Wartyback.

4. The answer is D – we’re looking for clues (and that early practice worked. We both write mysteries).

5. The answer is C – that’s the real-life Quantum on whom I based the dog in the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. Quantum was an amazing dog who herded sheep and ducks. He was also an internationally certified therapy dog, and he appeared in the Westminster Dog Show.

6. The answer is B – a chicken named Red traveled from Alabama to Illinois to meet me. What a nice chicken!

7. Absolutely and completely false - I can tootle on the chanter but that's about it.

8. Absolutely and completely false - my limit is knitting flat rectangular things.

9. Kind of true. I made my way through school as a cook, first in a delicatessen, then in a bar and grill, then in a dormitory for 2,000 students. I’ve ended up a pretty good cook.

10. True - Old MacDonald in Gaelic is a ton of fun to sing.

Thanks for playing trivia with me!  

For a chance to win one of three copies of Come Shell or High Water, let me know your favorite question and answer in the comments. I’ll choose winners around noon on Tuesday 6/25.

 

 Out next week!

When widowed folklorist Maureen Nash visits a legendary North Carolina barrier island shell shop, she discovers its resident ghost pirate and the mystery of a local’s untimely death . . .

 

If you'd rather visit Scotland, try my Highland Bookshop Mysteries. 

In the mood for yarn and cool, green mountains of Tennessee? Try my Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries.

There are short stories and stand-alone mysteries, too.

And super-gentle cozy mysteries written under my pen name, Margaret Welch.

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter  or Instagram.