My bucket List

 RHYS BOWEN: Last fall I flew to England to join my college friends in a reunion. We’ve been getting together regularly over the years. At first it was every five years, then every three, then two and now we are reaching our sell-by date it’s every one.

These are old broads by any definition but some of us are still living our best lives. I stayed for a few days before the reunion with my friend Evelyn. She was married to an international consultant and they traveled a lot. He died a few years ago but Evelyn keeps on traveling. Last year it was a cruise that started in Indonesia and went up through Asia and around Japan. When we were together she said she had booked to travel the Silk Road. I looked surprised. Why? She said she’d just read a book about it and was curious. And so in November she did.

This was no easy travel. Bumpy roads, crossing strange borders. But she had a great time, (apart from too many mosques, she told me).

That made me think: where do I still want to go that I haven’t been? I’m trying to be realistic and know that I can’t do the hike around Mont Blanc, which I had always wanted to do. I’ve been to a lot of Asia and don’t want that nineteen hour flight again. I had always wanted to do an African safari but wonder if my back can take the jolting of a jeep over rough ground. 

So what could still be on my bucket list? I’d always wanted to do a canal boat trip through France. I know France well, have been all over and love to go back, especially to the south. Ditto for Italy. I’ve never been to Puglia so that could be a future trip. And also Switzerland. I love the Alps and would happily ride trains all over Switzerland. But anything more exotic?  I’ve never been up the Amazon. Or to Peru.  I don’t think I’d tackle Machu Pichu and the altitude.  I find more and more that I long to go back to the familiar: Cornish fishing villages, Villefranche Sur Mer, Venice, Tuscany.  As long as I can keep traveling it’s fine with me.

How about you, Reds? What’s on your bucket lists?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m like you, Rhys, in that there are places I once had on my list that time has crossed off for me. I’m not making that hike up to Machu Piccu either!

I’d love to do luxury train trips: the Orient Express, the Andean Explorer in Peru, the new Brittanic Explorer which goes through Cornwall and Wales. I’d love to visit Asia and southeast Asia: Korea, China, Singapore, Malaysia. If I could find some sort of guided tour based around eating, that would be heaven!

I’ve long wanted to see Kashmir, but I suppose that’s out of reach until India and Pakistan reach an amiable agreement, so… a hundred years from now?

The Adriatic Sea from Albania and Montenegro, before everyone catches on and starts going there.

But honestly, the vacations that most appeal to me these days involve a sunny beach, a stack of books, and a waiter bringing me lunch and pineapple drinks!

RHYS: Julia, we were lucky enough to visit Kashmir while it was still open. Such a glorious place.

HALLIE EPHRON: This is hard, because my Jerry was THE best traveling companion. I’m so much less adventurous without him. Our last trips were to Peru (Yes, Machu Pichu!) and Panama. I’d always hoped we could get to Texas for the whooping crane migration. 

On my own, now, or dragging along a daughter or two, I’d be up for one of the small river boat cruises of eastern Europe.

JENN McKINLAY: I’m still up for anything but my short dream list is Iceland, Japan, and Kenya. On the immediate actually happening list is Spain, Portugal, and the Azores.

The Hooligans are fabulous travelers—curious, helpful, and independent so they have their own lists. It’ll be fun to see where their adventures take them and if I can hitch a ride. LOL. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: My parents went to Machu Pichu, Rhys, but it has never been on my bucket list. There are so many places in England that I still want to visit, and many that I want to revisit. And I have never been to Ireland! My kiddos are going for a week's tour over spring break and I'm very jealous. I want to go back to Paris and the south of France. I want to stay in a Tuscan villa and drink wine. I'd love to do one of those European river cruises, too. I feel very dull compared to Jenn!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oxford, Oxford, Oxford. I have never been there, and I cannot believe it. I would hop on a plane right now if I could. And then Ireland.  And then a river cruise, although I am always hearing the people get sick.

Debs, I am here to tell you that staying in a Tuscan villa and drinking wine is ALL its cracked up to be. Fabulous in every way. I’d like to go back to Paris and just live there, with no tourist responsibilities

RHYS: All the above are so doable, Hank. Please go while you and Jonathan are still young and healthy enough to enjoy them!

LUCY BURDETTE: We are in the airport right now after a 12 hour delay so it’s a little hard to answer this question lol. But I will anyway. Iceland and Japan, yes. And now I know that Jenn would be a fabulous traveling companion. Among other good qualities, she can reach anything on the top shelf and put a bag in the overhead Compartment without breaking a sweat.  More France, more Scotland and England, and definitely Switzerland. I feel like I should go to Germany because a lot of my ancestors came from that area. I’m delighted to hear that Rhys and her buddies intend to keep traveling! I am in.

RHYS: So my message to all you Reddies out there. Don't put off travel until you finds it's too late. I know the world is crazy at the moment but let's hope soon sanity will be restored and the world will be our oyster again. Where do you want to go?

Rhys is Battling Scams.

 RHYS BOWEN:  If you are a fellow author you will identify with this post. I am currently being driven crazy with fake offers to feature my books.  From pretend book clubs ( my favorite so far was the Manhattan book club), fake trailers, etc.  Below are some of the offers I received this week.

Sometimes I try writing back, saying that they don't need my permission to feature my book. Book clubs do it all the time. When I am in a bad mood I reply why the hell would I choose an unknown, unproven source to promote my books. And an even worse mood : You are not Sandra Smith. You are Mr. Mboko in Nigeria. Shame on you.

But nothing seems to deter them. And my worry is that I'll miss a real offer from a lovely book club, who'd like to chat with me, or a real invite to a podcast. I have to point out some are so real that I'm almost taken in. I got an offer from Traci Thomas, whose podcast Stacks is very popular. It sounded real enough but... I ran it by my publicist who responded instantly "that's not Traci's address."

I suppose there are enough self published authors desperate enough to pay someone to "spotlight" their book. Spotlight seems to be the red light. It appears often in their posts. 

Dear Ms. Bowen,
I hope you are doing well.
I am sending one last brief note to see if you would be open to a featured spotlight for From Cradle to Grave with The Metro Philadelphia Book Club. Our members have a strong appreciation for historical mysteries that combine rich atmosphere and wit, and we would be honored to feature your work within our community.
If this opportunity is of interest to you, please let me know and I will gladly provide the next steps and submission details.
Thank you again for your time and for the wonderful stories you share with your readers.
Warm regards,
Paul 
Organizer 
The Metro Philadelphia Book Club

My name is Maren Jovita, and I specialize in connecting authors with engaged readers through curated book clubs and structured reading challenges.
Your book, Vanished in the Crowd: A Molly Murphy Mystery, immediately caught my attention. The setting of New York during the vibrant 1909 Hudson-Fulton celebration creates a fascinating backdrop for mystery and intrigue. 

Dear Rhys Bowen,
I hope you’re doing well. I just wanted to follow up briefly on my earlier message regarding our invitation for you to be featured in The European Book Club Author Spotlight for [Her Royal Spyness]. From Marie Jeff.

Dear Rhys,
I review your book Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure, and I truly admire the resilience and courage you bring to Ellie Endicott’s story. Navigating betrayal in pre-WWII England while forging a new path filled with friendship and love creates a rich and emotionally engaging narrative that resonates deeply with readers.
As I read through the overview, I could easily envision how this story could translate into a cinematic trailer. The blend of personal reinvention, suspense, and the charm of 1930s England provides a strong visual and emotional hook that would immediately immerse viewers in Ellie’s journey.
As head staff editor at Lakewood Publishers, I work with authors to create cinematic trailer concepts that highlight the heart and drama of their stories. 

Tailored Media is currently identifying select titles for our upcoming production cycle, and Vanished in the Crowd: A Molly Murphy Mystery has been flagged for its high cinematic potential. Our department specializes in developing high-caliber trailers that bridge the gap between regional publication and a dominant global digital presence, ensuring your narrative carries the visual authority required for today’s market.

To demonstrate the impact of our creative approach, we have developed a professional trailer script specifically for this book. This concept is engineered to capture international audiences within the first few seconds of engagement, visualizing the grandeur of the 1909 Hudson-Fulton celebration and the electric atmosphere of New York City as it clashes with the "sinister" disappearance of a brilliant scientist, providing a scalable asset for both regional and global marketing campaigns.

Would you like us to send the script over so you can get a feel for the cinematic vision we have for your work?

Best regards.

Jeffrey Eben,
Creative Director | Tailored Media
https://tailoredmedia.co.uk/
Signal: +1 (458) 331-3006
Sophisticated Media for the Discerning Eye
Gunnery House, 9‑11 Gunnery Terrace
Royal Arsenal, LONDON SE18 6SW, UK

Note from Rhys: his email address was another country and that is not a British phone number.

My friend Lee Goldberg has great fun with his scam emails. He gets them from fake famous authors, like James Patterson. He writes back outlandish things. Dear Tana : I'm surprised you still want to talk to me after what happened. I want you to know that the rape charge was dropped but I am still in jail.

To a male writer he wrote, "You have a nerve to contact me after what you did to my wife."

The funniest one was when he got an email from fake Rhys Bowen.  Now I know I've arrived!!!

So how do my fellow authors deal with this constant annoyance? I now just delete but they keep following up three or four times. 

We're mystery writers. Can we come up with a fiendish way to send poisonous spiders through the internet to them???

The Matilda Effect, A guest post by Clare Broyles.

 RHYS BOWEN: Last week my daughter Clare and I celebrated the release of our latest Molly Murphy novel, VANISHED IN THE CROWD. It's Molly 22 (can you believe it?). Since Clare was the primary researcher and instigator of this story, I thought she should talk a little about the driving force behind the story.  Clare?

CLARE BROYLES: I went to high school in the 1980’s. It was a time of hope for women’s lib – the era of big shoulders and girl bosses. We were taught that a woman could do anything that a man could do. But at the same time, my history and literature classes were steeped in only what men had done. In the textbooks of the eighties, men (especially white men) were the explorers, the architects, the poets and heralds of Western civilization. They held the patents, owned the companies, and authored the novels. But more recent scholarship has shown that our textbooks were all wrong.

The dominance of men as innovators and leaders was largely due to the erasing of women’s names from their achievements. The woman who brought the French style of cinematography to early films was described only as a secretary. The woman engineer who completed the Brooklyn bridge, hid her accomplishment so as to not embarrass her bedridden husband (and lose his salary!). Our textbooks lionized Watson and Crick but we never learned about Rosalind Franklin who took the photograph of DNA that enabled their research. For many years scientific discoveries by women had to be in a paper authored by a man in order to be published. So it was natural, but completely untrue, that my high school self thought that men were the designers of the modern world.

This phenomena has a name, “The Matilda effect,” named after suffragist Matilda Gage by the researcher Margaret Rossiter. Her efforts in the 1990’s to restore women’s names to their achievements was labeled activist scholarship, but her volumes on the contributions of women through history have demonstrated  how often women were overlooked or erased. These women include the discoverer of nuclear fission, the woman who discovered the composition of the stars, microbiologists, authors, computers, mathematicians, and even the creator of the game Monopoly!

 This is the dilemma of the fictional Willa Parker in the latest Molly Murphy mystery: Vanished in the Crowd. She is a passionate virologist who can only find work in her husband’s lab and publish her research under his name. Her commitment to her work is meant to be put aside when she has a child and her family given precedence. When she gets on a train for New York and then vanishes, it is by force or by choice? That is the question that Molly Murphy has to answer. She wants to find Willa before her husband does to find out if Willa wants to be rescued, or if she is better off remaining hidden.

Readers of historical fiction might ask, is this anachronistic? Were there really women scientists in 1909 working on the cutting edge of finding a cure for the polio virus? And the answer is yes. There were passionate women scientists persevering against all odds. The reason we as modern readers are surprised is the Matilda effect itself.

It can be hard to rewrite the internal scripts created by the world in which we grew up. Fiction has always been helpful in imagining the world in a different way. In my high school years, science fiction and fantasy allowed me to imagine worlds of powerful women, but current historical fiction portraying women and their accomplishments allows me to rewrite that history in my psyche. Molly Murphy, the character, is growing and changing as she finds herself in the company of suffragists and powerful women. She is starting to believe more in the cause and question the dictates of the society she was born into, just as I have.

What about you? What assumptions from your formative years have you had to rewrite in your mind and your psyche? How have novels helped you learn a new point of view?