Friday, July 26, 2019

Having Fun Again By Vicki Delany

Jenn McKinlay: One of the people I most love to see at mystery conferences is the fabulous Vicki Delany! Super talented and (bonus points) she always makes me laugh, she's here today to talk about her multi genre world.

Vicki Delany: I started my writing career writing standalone novels of psychological suspense, what’s now so hugely popular under the label of domestic suspense; I then wrote an eight novel police procedural series. In between those I wrote a historical series set in the Klondike Gold Rush and novellas for adult literary. 
And now I’m writing cozies. Why the change?
About six years ago, I was starting to get a bit... shall we say burned out?  I was seriously thinking about giving up writing. I can’t really say why, maybe I wasn’t having fun with it any more. Tough stuff, even fictionally, is tough to deal with sometimes.  
None of my suspense novels or the police series were exceptionally graphic in their descriptions of violence (not going there!), but they dealt with the ugly side of life. As my protagonist Constable Molly Smith said:
       “When I decided to become a police officer I knew I’d have to deal with the hard side of life. Beaten children, raped women, accident victims, blood and gore. But that’s not the hardest part, is it? It’s the goddamn tragedy of people’s lives.” 
--Among the Departed, by Vicki Delany

In one book, Molly Smith kills a man; in them all the fall-out of the murder or crime is wide-spread and devastating. I dealt with the murder of a mother, the disappearance of a father, the suspected betrayal of a spouse, the death of adult children (not touching little kids), a man who went to prison for twenty-five years for a crime he didn’t commit, and an ex-soldier with PTSD and a gun on his lap.
The standalones were about dysfunctional families and the lasting repercussions of wartime trauma. I completed a book (never published) about a tough-as-they-come former cop whose niece is sold to a sex-trafficking ring and tries to find her.  
I had a vague idea for a new standalone, maybe something about a WWII era ghost living in an abandoned barn that’s being developed for a new winery, when I was asked by Kim Lionetti of Bookends if I’d like to try my hand at the Lighthouse Library series work-for-hire Berkley was offering. 
Sure, thought I. Might as well. I gave it a go, got the contract, and I’ve never looked back. 
Because I found that writing could be fun again. I love writing cozies.  One thing led to another and I’m now writing FOUR cozy series. That’s three or four books a year. I approach every day (well, almost every day) excited to get back to the computer and the story. 
The word I often use for the cozies I write is FUN. They should be fun for the author and fun for the reader.  Not all cozies are humorous, but I hope mine are. Writing humour, I’ve found, makes me smile. (The master, if I may say so, of the laugh-out-loud cozy is Jenn McKinlay!)

Jenn: Aw, shucks. Thanks, my friend, I feel the same about yours! Humor is the secret sauce, in my opinion, to a good cozy series.
Cozies are intended to be nothing more than an entertaining read. You won’t learn many lessons about the human condition, no one is suffering from angst or threating to kill themselves because of depression. No PTSD. No terrorist attacks or serial killers. Just people with friends and lovers and community. And the occasional enemy. And a murder of course.
Cozy mysteries are not trying to make an important statement about the human condition, or hoping to change the world. A cozy mystery tells a story that attempts to be entertaining, that’s about people much like us (or like us if we were prettier, or smarter, or younger!) and our friends and family. 
Cozy mysteries are about real people living real lives (except for that pesky murder bit), although writ large. Everything is exaggerated. The nosy neighbour is nosier, the ditzy friend is ditzier, the mean girl is meaner. And the handsome man is, well, handsomer.  Even better if there are two of them. 


Case in point: My newest book is the fourth in the Year Round Christmas series, Silent Night Deadly Night, coming August 27 from Berkley.  It’s set in the week before Thanksgiving when Merry Wilkinson’s mother hosts her college friends for a reunion.  What’s Thanksgiving but family, friends, food? Oh, and a decades-long resentment that finally spills over. Literally over, into the pot luck supper.  Take a look at that cover – I bet it brought a smile to your face.
Readers who enjoy cozies often tell me they read them to escape from the real world. They get enough bad news on TV, and sometimes even in their own life. Cozy mysteries really are an escape.  
I get a lot of letters asking me to write a new Constable Molly Smith or another standalone. And maybe someday I will, but right now I’m loving the opportunity to write cozy mysteries. 
As a writer, I might be committed to cozies now, but as I reader I really do like to mix it all up. I’d love to know what type of novels Jungle Red readers prefer. Are you into the dark gritty stuff, or do you seek escape in your reading? Maybe both?


Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She is the author of more than thirty-five published books, so far: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane, the Year Round Christmas mysteries for Penguin Random House, the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington and, as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series, for Crooked Lane Books.  

Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. 

40 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your newest book, Vicki. Four different book series must keep you very busy! [But it also makes us readers very happy.]

    I don’t have a preferred genre [although I have several favorite series books that I always read]; I enjoy reading a variety of stories. The gritty ones are sometimes difficult to get through, but I always learn something from them; the cozy ones always make me smile. So, I guess I’m good, as long as I have a book to read . . . .

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  2. Welcome, Vicki! I like a mix of books when reading too, but I usually can't read two darker books in a row. Cozies, on the other hand, are light enough that I don't need a break in between books. And I can definitely understand why you'd rather write cozies.

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    1. Agreed about two darker books in a row. Like in a good meal, sometimes you need a little dessert.

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  3. I enjoy most all mystery and crime books, but I seem to lean heavily towards series reading with the Reds here and English series, such as Elly Griffiths. I enjoy getting to know the characters in a series. I've latched on to the psychological and domestic thrillers that are so prevalent now, too. So, much of my reading is darker than the cozy. However, I need cozies, too. Humor in life is important to me, so I need it in my reading from time to time, too. In fact, I think I like cozies better than I ever did at this point in my life, the older years. Vicki, I love your Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, but I'm behind. I'll fix that. I really want to get to some of your other series, too, and plan on starting the Year Round Christmas mysteries this year. They have the absolute best covers.

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  4. I am definitely on the cozy side of things. I read to escape. Yes, I dip my toe into the darker side, but cozies are still the majority of my reading diet. And when I read something too dark, I run to the coziest books I can to help cleanse the pallet.

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    1. I’m with you, Mark! I like the occasional thriller but I always run back to cozies!

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  5. Vicky, congrats on the new book!

    I like both sides of the mystery coin. I have come to love the cozy genre after initially hating it. I think my tastes evolved but also I think the quality of the writing these days is much better than when I first started getting into reading mysteries in a more committed fashion.

    However, I also like the darker side of things. I always like to say that I'm more of a "blood, bodies and bullets" kind of reader. These things don't give me the same kind of issues that many of the mystery fans and authors seem to have. Personally, I'd love to read that unpublished story of yours about the uncle searching for his missing niece.

    I think it all just depends on my mood for determining what kind of story I want to read.

    I read three of your cozy series and I'm eagerly awaiting the new Year Round Christmas book. As for the Lighthouse Library series, my local library read the third book in the series a couple months back and everyone liked it a lot. I have Book 4 but haven't yet read it (I will soon, promise!). As for the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series...I LOVE IT!

    Now all I have to say is I'm still holding out hope that you will someday do a signing on Cape Cod that I can attend.

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    1. Jay, I had planned on coming to Cape Cod this June, but then my entire family decided to come to my house for a visit (not complaining!). Next year maybe. My feeling is I'd need to go in the spring, to get the books in the bookstores for the tourist season.

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  6. Congratulations on the new book, Vicki, and welcome to JRW.
    I'm a constant reader, often have 2-3 books going at a time. If I had to choose one genre only, it would be a stand alone. It's not that I don't enjoy a series at all. But sometimes I dislike the way things are heading, hate it when the writer kills off a character with whom I've developed an existential relationship! Or just stops. I get it, the ending of a series, because I know one has to move the furniture once in a while, even throw out the whole lot and redecorate. When Ann Cleeves told me at Bouchercon a couple of years ago that she was done with Shetland, I could have wept. Instead I bought us another glass of wine.

    I rarely to never read cozies, mostly because I'm put off by that very word. I understand how it must get very difficult to keep writing about the darker side of life though, and I respect anyone who can first get words down on paper, and then get published! That's something I can never do, having neither the talent nor the endurance it must take. Kudos to all of you.

    It's my privilege to come here first thing each morning and see what JRW has to offer for my entertainment, enjoyment, and erudition.

    And for those of you who write cozies, I promise to dip my toe in the water more often.

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    1. Try it! You might like it. Then again, it's okay if you don't like cozies. What I'm enjoying reading these comments is the incredible variety of readers JRW has.

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  7. Welcome, Vicki! And Kudoeson the new book!! I agree, I love humor and prefer my books slightly on the lighter side. (soft-boiled like an egg.) Series and standalones both appeal to me. Humor is tricky and I find it very hard to write well. It's something I depend a lot on advance readers to get right.

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  8. Glad your game is on again, Vicki! Four series?! You and Edith and Jenn amaze me!

    I tend to read fewer cozies than other kinds of books--mostly because I'm looking for a certain kind of writing--I sometimes find cozies cranked out in such a way that it seems an author is just fleshing out an outline provided by a publisher. I don't care about genre when the characters, the setting, the plot--in short, the writing--sucks me in and makes me stay up late turning just one more page....

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  9. Glad you're having fun again, Vicki!

    I have to admit I prefer the slightly "darker" stuff. But after a while I do need something lighter to break the cycle. As long as the cozy doesn't rely on tired old tropes (like the inept police officer), I'm good.

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  10. Vicki! Welcome! Always such fun to see you… I have so many treasured friends who wrote cozies, and I applaud them for it… They are fun and comforting, certainly. I tend to be a little more psychological and dark, not grisly , not graphic, but generally not humorous. It’s such a skill to be able to write humor! Because it can’t feel like you’re trying to write “funny”— it just has to emerge that way. But there is no doubt that cozies make a lot of readers very happy, and for that we are all grateful! Another difficulty: why would that amateur person try to solve a murder? How do you deal with that, Vicki? Xxxx

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    1. That's always a good question, Hank. I try to give the sleuth a good reason to be investigating. Someone close to her is under suspension, maybe even she herself. She knows the people involved, so knows things the police do not. She thinks people will speak more freely to her than to the police. None of the police in my books are incompetent or crooked. She just has insights they do not.

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    2. Should have said someone close to her is under 'suspicion'

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  11. I read most of the mystery genres and cozies are my comfort reading. I especially love the ones with cats, dogs, bookstores, or holidays. Vicki, I'm looking forward to reading your Year-Round Christmas mysteries. It's my favorite holiday!

    Right now I'm in the mood for Westerns so I'm reading Craig Johnson's Longmire, Reavis Wortham's Sonny Hawke, and William Kent Kruger's Cork O'Connor.

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  12. Four different series at the same time sounds intimidating to the non-writer here. I've enjoyed the lighthouse series and that I know Vicki and Eva are the same person I'm more tempted to pick up the other series. Are you ever tempted to put two series together for a special, one time only story? Or would that be unheard of? I feel like I'm more middle of the road, but if there is too much heaviness (or I have to think too much) I may put that book aside until I spend more uninterrupted time reading it.

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    1. I think Jenn did that in one of her books - have the characters meet up. That might be fun. I could do it with the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series and the Tea by the Sea as they are both set on Cape Cod. In one of the Lighthouse Library books a character wears a Sherlock tie his sister bought him in a 'quirky little store on Cape Cod'

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  13. Jenn, it is always wonderful seeing Vicki at conferences. I remember the Malice Domestic conference and the Toronto conference.

    Congratulations on your newest novel, Vicki! And welcome to the Jungle Reds. Your Christmastown cozy mystery series is among my favorites! I also love your Lighthouse Library mysteries. I agree with you that Jenn's cozy mysteries are wonderful. I love the Hat Shop series.

    MY personal preference is cozy mystery. I seek to escape into novels. I am not a big fan of the dark, gritty novels, though there are a few exceptions.

    Christmas is my favorite holiday!

    Diana

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  14. I enjoy reading cozies for the reasons you enjoy writing them. I do read more traditional mysteries occasionally (I love your Constable Molly Smith series), but I mostly read cozies. I always enjoy your books...no matter which series it is!

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  15. Hi Vicki! So nice to see you here, and congrats on the new book! I prefer series to standalones, generally, and for me you still can't beat a good British crime novel. But I do mix it up, and have several cozies in my gargantuan to-read pile. And as I have been cleaning out books these last few weeks, many of the to-reads that got edited were on the dark side. I found myself thinking, "I just don't want to read that." The news is so stressful these days that a lighter read is welcome.

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  16. I agree with what you're saying Debs. I also agree that you can't beat a good British crime novel.

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  17. Hi Vicki! I haven't had the pleasure of reading any of your series yet. I like to mix things up in my reading. I do enjoy series since I love character development. But standalones are also appealing. I just read Hank's Murder List. And balanced that with Ellen Crosby's The Angels' Share, a Virginia wine country mystery. I've been reading two series, book by book, for a few weeks now. Michael Robertson wrote a funny, snarky series about two brothers, barristers, who have their offices at 221B Baker Street and have to deal with letters to Sherlock Holmes as part of their lease. And I've been following Laura Bradford's series set in Pennsylvania Dutch country with English and Amish. I do enjoy cozies, although I hate that label. Cozies can work a lot of humor in the plots that other genres can't do too easily. But then again you have "non-cozies" that manage the humor. Longmire. Richard Jury.

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    1. I've read the Michael Robertson series. Great fun. Because my series is set in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop, I drop names of a lot of books and authors. Including Hank, who has a story in Echoes of Sherlock Holmes (at least I think that's the one!)

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  18. I love a good series! It is so sad when you think that you won't ever see a favorite character again because you've started to think of that character as a friend. I look forward to the next book like I do the visit of a favorite cousin! That is why I will even reread a whole series, just for the love of characters that you (Debs and Reds) have created for us! One of the last stand- alone novels I've read recently is "A Gentleman in Moscow." I almost cried when I finished it. I just hated for it to end.

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  19. Me too on reading series! I would not call Ann Cleeves or Kent Kreuger's series light, but somehow they focus on the characters enough that the grisliness of the crime doesn't overtake the series.

    Vicki, I sure would like to know how you can write 3 or 4 books a year--amazing!

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    1. I have no life? Actually, I've always been prolific, and I really can't say why. I do write every day, if I'm at home.

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  20. I like to mix it up & I think the grittier stories are an escape as well.

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  21. I like to mix it up. Why limit myself? Little did I know that living in Utah during the time of Gary Gilmore and Ted Bundy would set me on a lifelong course of wanting to see justice done!

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  22. I usually alternate mysteries with romances and sometimes autobiographies and sci-fi. The mysteries are mostly cozies but I follow Deborah Crombie, Elly Griffiths and a few more serious mystery authors. I like Constable Molly Smith. The setting was a plus in that, which is a cozy characteristic.

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    1. I loved writing the setting of the Molly Smith books. My daughter lives there. The real place that is.

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  23. I only read cozy mysteries. I know I will enjoy them - they are safe with no graphic violence, no traveling in the underbelly of life, no semi porn sex. I love getting to know the character, the fun towns they live in, a little romance, and I don't end up with feelings of angst. I have loved your cozy mysteries and really look forward to each new one. I don't know how authors can write so many stories, but I am so grateful that you can. Thanks for all of your work.

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    1. Thanks for your kind comments, Kathy. YOu are very welcome.

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