Home Is Where the Book Is by Holly West

 The winner of Carl Vonderau's SAVING MYLES is Kait! Email me at julia spencer fleming at Google mail and I'll connect you with Carl.

 

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING:  It's the most wonderful time of the year... for crime fiction lovers. Today marks the official start of the 2023 Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention, known to one and all as Bouchercon. What better time to have as our guest Holly West, the editor of KILLIN' TIME IN SAN DIEGO, the official anthology of this year's conference. Holly has assembled a California-sized collection of amazing authors to show us the underside of "America's Finest City."

Like much of crime fiction, each Bouchercon is rooted in its unique location; the ins and outs and quirks of setting are integral to both the books we love to read and to the conference where we celebrate them. There is no frigate like a book, and Holly is here to evoke the days when we first fell in love with that magical sort of traveling. Stick around to share your experience, and you might win a copy of KILLIN' TIME IN SAN DIEGO!

 

 

London, England, is the first place I remember falling in love with through books. Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Paddington Bear, and others all brought the city to wondrous life for a girl who lived in a small Northern California town that held none of the excitement, magic, and delight that a place like London did. Since then, I’ve visited London (in books and in person) many times, and it never fails to charm me, so much so that I set my two novels in a seventeenth-century version of the city.

 

(I also married an Englishman. Make of that what you will).

London, of course, was just the beginning of my childhood world travel through books. The All-of-a-Kind Family had me longing to visit the Lower East Side of New York City, circa 1912. I desperately wanted to see Pippi Longstocking’s Villa Villekula, or Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s farm. But one book dominated all of them, even those set in London.

 

Three Without Fear by Robert C. DuSoe, is about Dave, a boy who is shipwrecked off the coast of Baja, California, and meets orphans Pedro and Maria, who are traveling up to San Diego with their dog, Chico, to live with their grandmother. Despite a language barrier, Pedro and Maria invite David to accompany them, and during the journey, they teach him survival skills like saltwater distillation, clam digging, tortilla making, and hunting. We eventually learn that Pedro and Maria are on the run, and the three of them must also avoid detection by their pursuers.

 

It's impossible to say how many times I checked Three Without Fear out of our local library or how many times I’ve read it. Books were my comfort then and remain so, and Three Without Fear was my favorite balm. My family took vacations every summer, usually to the Northern California coast nearby to where I grew up, and I spent many an afternoon with my toes deep in the wet sand, hoping to find a clam we could roast on the campfire and eat with fresh homemade tortillas, the way Pedro and Maria taught Dave to do.

 

(Spoiler alert: There was no campfire—Motel 6 was my parents’ accommodation of choice. The tortillas were store-bought, and the only clams I ever ate were in the clam chowder we sometimes ate from bread bowls).

 

I can’t fully explain my childhood obsession with Three Without Fear, but the book also served as an introduction to Mexico, Baja California, and San Diego. As an adult, I became interested in genealogy and learned that my grandmother’s side of the family hails from Baja California. My great-great grandfather was born in Tecate, and he’s buried in San Diego, along with many of my other ancestors (and Raymond Chandler). If I believed in such things, I’d say that the psychic connection to long-dead family might’ve somehow triggered my love for the setting, but I’m content to accept that it’s simply a coincidence.

 

The point is that, as readers, we become world travelers at a young age, and those places stick with us for a lifetime, no matter where we go or what else we read later. I began this post speaking of my love for London, but, as it turns out, my reading heart was much closer to home.

 

What was the first place you remember falling in love with through reading?

Attending Bouchercon? Please join us for a celebration and signing of Killin' Time in San Diego on August 31, after the Opening Ceremonies in the Grand Ballroom. 

 

Welcome to San Diego, where the perpetual sunshine blurs the line between good and evil, and sin and redemption are two sides of the same golden coin.

Killin’ Time in San Diego is a gripping anthology edited by Holly West, featuring twenty of today’s best crime and mystery writers. Published in conjunction with Bouchercon 2023, this new anthology peels back the postcard-perfect image of San Diego to expose its darker side.

With contributions from #1 New York Times bestseller C.J. Box and the Edgar-award-winning author Naomi Hirahara, plus a new story from Ann Cleeves OBE, published for the first time in the U.S., Killin’ Time in San Diego showcases an impressive lineup of writers, including Mary Keenan, C.W. Blackwell, J.R. Sanders, John M. Floyd, Kathy A. Norris, Kathleen L. Asay, L.H. Dillman, Richie Narvaez, Wesley Browne, Désirée Zamorano, James Thorpe, Kim Keeline, Victoria Weisfeld, Anne-Marie Campbell, Jennifer Berg, Tim P. Walker, and Emilya Naymark.

From the haunted hallways of the Hotel del Coronado to the tranquil gardens of Balboa Park, from the opulent estates of La Jolla to the bustling Gaslamp Quarter, Killin’ Time in San Diegois your ticket to the hidden side of “America’s Finest City.” 

Holly West is the editor of Killin’ Time in San Diego, the Bouchercon 2023 anthology (August 30, Down & Out Books). Her previous work includes the Mistress of Fortune historical mystery series and numerous short stories. She also edited the Anthony Award-nominated anthology, Murder-a-Go-Go’s:Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Go-Go’s.