VICKI DELANY: Hi everyone and welcome to our new feature. On the third Sunday of every month one of us will be hosting Sunday Brunch. Please join us for news, updates on what we're doing in our lives, and good conversation. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask the group what's coming in their writing life in 2021.
I'll start: As always I'm juggling projects. I have FOUR books coming out in 2021. A Curious Incident, the sixth Sherlock Holmes bookshop mystery on January 12. Deadly Ever After, the seventh Lighthouse Library book (by Eva Gates) in May and Murder in a Tea Cup, the second Tea by the Sea book in July. Plus the first in my new 1950s Catskills series, Deadly Summer Nights will be out in August. Editing and proofreading all those books and writing new ones. It's going to be a busy year and I'm looking forward to it.
This cover is the first in the new Catskills Resort mysteries and it's very tentative (MY NAME IS SPELLED WRONG) so please don't share. It's just to give you a peek.
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DENISE: First up for me this year is
Fly Me to the Tomb, the seventh in my Devereaux's Dime Store series. I don't have a firm release date yet, but I'm aiming for early spring. Next is
Body Over Trouble Water, the twenty-third in my Scumble River series which is due out in July.
I'll be taking a month's sabbatical soon, and once I'm back I'll start to write the second in my Forever Charmed paranormal cozy series. The first,
A Call to Charms, was a book I had been thinking about for a long time, so the second will be more of a challenge. ;)
LESLIE BUDEWITZ: I'm excited about two very different projects this year. First up is my stand-alone suspense debut,
Bitterroot Lake, written as Alicia Beckman, coming in April -- and isn't that cover gorgeous?
Carried to the Grave and Other Food Lovers' Village Stories will be out in July, collecting the two published Village short stories and adding several more, including a historical novella set in 1910, when Erin's great-grandparents came to Jewel Bay and opened the original Mercantile.
Meanwhile, I'm working on the next Spice Shop mystery. After that? Well, a writer's life often involves waiting for offers and contracts. If there's an author whose work you enjoy or a series you love, boost your chances of reading more by telling your friends how much you love the books!
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MIA P. MANANSALA: Hello everyone! 2021 is my debut year and I'm so excited to finally have my lifelong dream come true.
Arsenic and Adobo releases May 4th, and I'll be busy promoting that book, revising Book 2, and drafting Book 3 (Berkley bought the first three books in the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery Series). Fingers crossed that the series does well and my publisher contracts me for more!
I also have a few short story ideas I hope to work on, an idea for a new series that I want to develop, and also I'd love to revise my first book, which failed on submission back in 2018. I still have high hopes for it, especially since my writing has improved since then. I'm planning on big things this year!
MADDIE DAY: Congratulation to debut author Mia! My
Murder at the Taffy Shop goes from a paperback exclusive to wide release on March 30, so it'll be for sale everywhere in paperback, audio. and ebook.
A Changing Light, the seventh in my Agatha-winning historical
Quaker Midwife Mystery series, releases on April 13 (that series is written as Edith Maxwell).
No Grater Crime, Country Store Mystery #9, will be out in October. I'm polishing #10,
Batter Off Dead now!
Murder at the Lobstah Shack will release at the end of this year, the third
Cozy Caper Book Group Mystery. This spring I'll write #4, which will focus on either a bridal shop or a flower shop. After that my next deadline is another Country Store Christmas novella, followed by novel #11 in the series. If your head is spinning, don't worry - mine is, as well. But hey, I'm living my dream. What's for brunch?
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LESLIE KARST: I'm very excited to let you all know that I'm embarking on a brand new project. My wife and I have been splitting our time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai‘i for twelve years, so when it came time to start thinking about a new series, the Big Island was the obvious location, with its glorious and dramatic landscape, splendid culture, and yes, delicious cuisine!
The protagonist of this new Orchid Isle Mystery Series, the first of which is tentatively entitled Molten Death, is Valerie Corbin, a retired caterer who comes to the Big Island with her wife Kristen in search of distraction following the loss of her brother and her own brush with death. But when she alone witnesses a body being blanketed by hot flowing lava and no one else believes her, Valerie becomes consumed by the mystery of the body in the lava, determined to find out what happened. I’ve only just finished the revisions to the manuscript, but here’s hoping it’ll be available in print sometime soon!
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CLEO COYLE: Back in 2003, my husband and I began writing
The Haunted Bookshop Mystery series. At the time, I
was inspired to create the series by my longtime love of
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. I worked hard
with Marc to transform that basic concept into a lively series of original murder mysteries set in a haunted bookshop with a hard-boiled PI
ghost named Jack. Five of our Haunted Bookshop Mysteries were published between 2004 and 2009, starting with
The Ghost and Mrs. McClure, all were national
bestsellers. For a variety of reasons, which we revealed in
this post, we put
the series on hiatus for nearly ten years. Finally, with the incredible encouragement of our Haunted Bookshop fans and the support of our editor, we took a chance and brought our PI ghost Jack back, along with his living sidekick, the beloved bookseller Penelope McClure. Our 6th entry,
The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller became and actual bestseller and a
Suspense Magazine Best Book of 2018 selection. Which brings us to...
Our brand new Haunted
Bookshop Mystery, The Ghost and the Haunted Portrait, releasing this April. We're
proud of this new book. The twisty mystery is loads of fun, but the story also shines a spotlight on abuses and scams in our publishing
industry, drawing a few parallels between today's world and the bad-old-days of Jack's time and pulp magazines. We are now under contract for more books in our Haunted series,
which we are looking forward to writing! And we are happily still writing our long-running ☕ Coffeehouse Mystery series, which will see its 19th book published (in hardcover, e-book and audio) before year’s
end. We'll be starting our 20th
Coffeehouse Mystery this year and working out story arcs for future books. Our
readers can look forward to plenty more culinary mysteries from us with significant
developments in the lives of our Coffeehouse crew. Stay tuned!
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LUCY BURDETTE: It's so much fun to read about all the upcoming releases and projects in this prolific group! My eleventh Key West food critic mystery, A SCONE OF CONTENTION, will hit bookshelves everywhere on August 10--it's available for pre-order now. You'll be able to buy the mass market paperback version of THE KEY LIME CRIME on July 21. And only through January, ebook versions of DEATH ON THE MENU and A DEADLY FEAST are on sale for $1.99, and even THE KEY LIME CRIME is on sale for $2.99!
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MAYA CORRIGAN: The upcoming books from our group sound delicious! Congratulations to Mia on her debut mystery. I'm currently working on the 8th book in my Five-Ingredient Mystery series. It's not due until summer, and I don't yet have the publication date for it. There is a $1.99 January sale on the e-book version of the first book in the series, BY COOK OR BY CROOK from all vendors, and on the second book SCAM CHOWDER from Amazon and Apple. Amazon currently offers discounted prices on the paperback and e-book versions of other books in the series. If you're looking for a seasonal read, try THE TELL-TALE TARTE. It takes you to the Baltimore cemetery where annually for decades a visitor came by night and left cognac and roses at Poe's grave on his birthday, January 19th. It's a good time of year to curl up with a cozy!
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MARY JANE MAFFINI What a great beginning for Sunday Brunch here at Mystery Lovers Kitchen! I am a mystery reader as well as an author and am very keen to catch up with the new series from my MLK friends as well as forthcoming books in series I've loved for a long time. These are not easy times. For me and for so many of us, cozy mysteries such as we write here are a wonderful antidote to the daily challenges we face. Bring 'em on!
When not reading or cooking or chasing small wicked dogs, I am busy finishing the sixth Charlotte Adams book: Death Plans a Perfect Trip. At the same time Beyond the Page is reissuing the first five books in the series, to be released in the spring. The pandemic has slammed the television production industry and we are waiting to hear what will happen with the Charlotte Adams adaptation for TV. As for the first five, we've been through the edits this past year and now the process of page proofs in underway. I love page proofs, even if they often require a quick turnaround. Cover designs will be starting soon. I wish I had a cover to tease you with here, but it was not to be. As Truffle and Sweet Marie, Charlotte Adams's rescued dachshunds, play an important role in each book (not solving any murders though), I am hoping that wiener dogs will appear on the covers. I've sent this photo of some of the resident pooches to the publisher as a hint, and will keep you posted.
Mia, your book sounds great and it also seems like you have a dachshund on the cover. Hmm. A new sub-genre?
GIVEAWAY!
While you're waiting for our new books to arrive in your
bookstore or library, you can enter our giveaway for these great books.
As authors we're always interested in our readers buying
and reading habits. Please answer one or more of these questions
in the comments (below) to be entered for the draw.
Do you order books you’re excited about
in advance or eagerly wait until release day?
Will you read the latest book in a series and skip around?
Or must you start with book one and read in order?
How do you hear about new authors and books–
friends, newsletters, booksellers & library staff, book clubs?
How important is the cover to you?
Have you ever bought a book based on the cover?
Does that happen often or rarely?
A Curious Incident by Vicki Delany
Murder at the Taffy Shop by Maddie Day
The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller by Cleo Coyle
My next series featured clinical psychologist Rebecca Butterman, who was also a good home cook. (Those are available as ebooks.) Finally, in 2012, I sold the first of my Key West food critic mystery series, AN APPETITE FOR MURDER. As we now live in quirky Key West half the year, and as I love to eat and talk about food, this series suits me perfectly. The twelfth book, A DISH TO DIE FOR, will be published in August. A long-running series with characters who grow and change suits my psychology background too!
