MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER--Which ones are YOU?

 DEBORAH CROMBIE:  It's a big day here in-- what did we decide to call it our little English village? Redfields? Anyway, we are all here celebrating Hanks newest thriller! Library Journal called Mother Daughter Sister Stranger “terrific.” And it’s a “Most Anticipated” from Zibby Owens, BookBub, Goodreads, Scary Mommy, Beyond the Bookends, AARP, and more!

Congratulations, dear Hank, on your 18th novel!  (And, hint hint, you all can order it here!

What’s it about and where did it come from? And questions for you, Reds and Readers, and a giveaway, below!

DEBS: Hank, where did MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER come from?

Hank: Oh, it's a total magpie story. A little bit of this and a little bit of that and then, at some point, the story fragments reach critical mass and become something else. An entirely new story. Know what I mean? It’s amazing and so exciting when it happens.

One fragment: I was thinking about how often, when I was a teenager mostly, I'd lied to my mother. Not big deal lies, just homework and where I was at a pick a particular time. I'm sure she didn't believe a word of it, but she let it all go. But recently I started wondering, had she ever lied to me? How would I ever know? What if I found out? I kept thinking about that, that fragile relationship, and how we assume that what we've been told about our family history is true.

I must have been being a little nostalgic, too, because I also thought about how when I was growing up, and my mother would read out loud to me. I was always so frustrated when she said: “The End.” Because that couldn't be the end, could it? What happened after that and after that and after that? 

I have always been fascinated by what happened to the Narnia kids, what happened to Nancy Drew, and later, what happened to Nick Carraway and the Bennett sisters. How did their lives turn out after their books ended? Were the endings actually happy?

I was also looking back at a prior manuscript of mine, and reading bill notes that my editor had put in the margins. And I realized how that shaped the story, how that shepherded what stayed in and what got cut and how people's motivations and desires changed. How the notes in the margins of a manuscript, the discussion between author and editor, can reveal the real story behind the story. More I cannot say.

So, Mother Daughter Sister Stranger:  A missing mom. A frightened daughter. And a sister determined to find a happy ending for their family. Even though, as she discovers, her family's history turns out to be terrifyingly sinister, and all of their lives may go up in flames once again.

DEBS: You are famously a pantser. Were there big changes from the first draft to the final?

HANK: Well, that is a perfect question for this book! When Mother Daughter Sister Stranger was in first draft, the main character, Eliza Ramsey, had a blog where she wrote happy endings for characters in her favorite books. As she says in the original manuscript: she took Psych 101, and is well aware she’s really looking for a happy ending for herself after the devastating tragedy of her childhood, but that is something she cannot control. So she writes happy endings for others.

But!  All that got cut! ALL OF IT! Because my darling editor and I decided it was just a little too much information. Eliza is still looking for happy endings, but in a completely different way. You’ll have to read it to find out.

DEBS: Did any character unexpectedly take the story in a direction you hadn’t expected?

HANK: As you said, I never plan. So the entire book took the story in directions I hadn't expected! But yes, there were two characters, certainly, who as they grew on the page, behaved in ways that were very surprising to me. I kept trying to nudge them back into the personality I thought I was writing. But finally I realized they were right, and that's who they were in the final version.

Yes, I know I am not being specific about this. I am doing that on purpose. I want you to experience the story the way I did--a total surprise!

DEBS: Your books starts in Boston, but then heads way out to western Massachusetts. Why?

HANK: Oh gosh, I adore the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts, my husband and I go every summer to take peaceful walks in the woods, and go to art museums, and try wonderful new restaurants, see every play we can, pay homage to Edith Wharton at The Mount, and enjoy the glorious music of the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood. The rolling hills and gorgeous scenery are absolutely immersive, there's a peace and a calm in the Berkshires that is like nowhere else. 

However. It's also a place where many people go just for the summer, And the dynamic between the summer people and the people who live there year-round can be full of simmering conflict. As one character in the book admires the graceful geese flying overhead, another character sneers, and says:  if you had to clean up golf courses after the geese depart, you would not be so in love with them.

Two different worlds. Beautiful on the outside, but sometimes festering on the inside. And that's what shapes the story. 

DEBS: Where are you in your family's birth order? Do you have sisters? Tell us one thing you learned from your mother or your sisters--something that we hear in the book.

HANK: I grew up with three sisters and a brother, and I am the oldest.  And know best. As I remind them at every turn.

But when I was in college, I made a game called Familial Pursuits. It was all questions about our family's history. Like: “Who dented mom's new car? And how did it happen?”  And “Who was home when the barn burned down?”. Let me tell you, we all had different answers to those questions. And we were all absolutely convinced our answers were right.

How did we all remember the same thing so differently? And what did we all assume about each other?   In MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER, family memories, family legacies--and some terrifying murders-- are the center of the story.

As it says on the cover:  Every family has its legacy, and this one's deadly.

DEBS:  I love the title, too. Because everyone of us is at least one of those nouns, right? And some of us are all of them. I'm a mother, and a daughter, and a stranger to many people. 

HANK: Yeah, so true! I'm a daughter and a sister and a stranger. And the way we play those roles is what dictates our lives. What would you do if your mother went missing? What if she had lied to you from the start?

DEBS: Whoa. Love this. Congratulations, Hank!

HANK: Thank you! SO exciting! I’ll be on book tour for about two weeks—hope to see some of you out there! (And I just saw Amanda in one of my online classes! SO fabulous!). Here’s my schedule.

DEBS: Reds and Readers, What's your birth order? And do you think it has made a difference in who you are and how you face the world?

And Hank is giving a copy of Mother Daughter Sister Stranger to one lucky (US only) commenter! 

Bond. James Bond. by James R. Benn

JIM BENN: In the very first Ian Fleming novel, Casino Royale, CIA agent Felix Leiter introduces himself to Bond, who responds, "Mine's Bond—James Bond." The shortened version, “Bond—James Bond” appears in the 1958 novel Dr. No when Bond uses it to introduce himself to Honeychile Rider. But when it came to the film version, the screenwriters liked the delivery so much they moved it to  the opening scene  of the film, when he introduces himself to Sylvia Trench at the baccarat table. There, they became the first words Sean Connery spoke as secret agent 007.  And one of cinema’s most famous introductory lines.

Now that we’ve been properly introduced to the world’s most famous fictional spy, the question becomes, who exactly is James Bond? And where did he come from?

Commander Ian Fleming is a character in my latest Billy Boyle World War II mystery, The Ninth Circle. I dove into the research on his life, as I wanted to get a sense of the person he was. I found him to be complicated, infuriating, often selfish, but always interesting. 

It’s fair to say that at the time of the events in my book—January 1945—Fleming had not yet conceived of James Bond. He had talked about writing a spy novel someday. But he had yet to emerge from the shadow of his wildly successful and devilishly handsome older brother Peter to whom success came as easily as it passed Ian by.

Peter had excelled at Eton and Oxford and then quickly become a travel writer and journalist. He traveled the world and produced multiple books. He became famous immediately..

Meanwhile, Ian dropped out of Eton, where he had excelled only at athletics. He went on to spend one year at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst before he contracted gonorrhea and left in an undistinguished rush.

When WWII broke out, Peter Fleming was already a reserve officer in the Grenadier Guards and fought in the Norwegian campaign with a commando unit. He also found the time to write a satirical novella in 1940 about Adolf Hitler flying to Britain to propose peace. It was a literary success. Peter went on to serve in Greece and then in India as head of D Division, in charge of military deception operations in Southeast Asia.

While Peter was establishing his reputation, Ian was adrift. After the Sandhurst fiasco in 1927, his mother shipped him off to Kitzbühel, Austria. There, he was enrolled in a small private school run by Ernan Forbes Dennis, a former intelligence officer, and his wife, novelist Phyllis Bottome.

The idea was for Ian to learn French and German and prepare himself for the Foreign Office exam. The whole matter got off to a rocky start.  Forbes Dennis states that Fleming "was really quite impossible when he first came to us.”  After a visit by Peter, Forbes Dennis described the brothers’ relationship this way: Peter is  “a glossy racehorse out in front, Ian struggling to keep up with him.”

Ernan Forbes Dennis and Phyllis Bottome were adherents of Alfred Adler, a member of Freud’s inner circle who specialized in education. Applying Adler’s democratic, non-authoritarian approach to Ian, they realized he was engaged in “an endless neurotic duel” with his brother who caused him to feel “dethroned or otherwise outdistanced.” 

At one point, after Ian had impregnated a local girl who was dating a friend of his, they’d had enough of him. Forbes Dennis saw this as a reflection of Ian’s neurosis and wrote “The intense sibling rivalry he experienced with his brother Peter seemed to be replayed in his endless cuckolding of men he regarded as his friends.” They were ready to expel him and send him back to his mother, a notion which held little appeal to Ian.

This was a wake-up call. Ian begged for a chance at redemption which he was granted. Under the couple’s tutelage, he spent three years at Kitzbühel, where he perfected his German and greatly improved his French. He ultimately was not selected for the Foreign Office. But he returned home to England after three years in Austria a more confident and better educated young man. He had learned about the intelligence business from Forbes Dennis and writing from Phyllis, who encouraged him to work on short stories. Both were valuable assets, as was the Tyrolean scenery which Ian loved, and would later play a role in several books.

Ian returned to Britain and worked for two years as a journalist without much success. In 1933 he ended up at a London investment firm. He was unsuccessful as a stockbroker. He told a colleague at Rowe & Pitman, “My brother Peter’s the writer in the family and he’s terribly good at it.”

Alfred Adler might have said that Ian had found his place in life as the failed younger brother and was neurotically wedded to his persona.

But the Second World War was Ian’s salvation. After a string of failed enterprises, in 1939 he found himself at the center of an intelligence network where he was elevated to the rank of lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. Not that he’d had any naval experience. Even so, he was recruited to be the personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence. 

Whatever he lacked in military attributes, he made up for in organizational and planning skills. With his keen and devious mind, he generated a number of plans for intelligence operations. One of those plans became known as Operation Mincemeat, in which a body disguised as a British officer carrying secret documents was left on the Portuguese coast. The successful deception was aimed at drawing German troops away from Sicily in advance of the Allied invasion.

Ian Fleming wrote the original memo suggesting this general concept in 1939. It was operationally run by two other Royal Navy officers.

Even so, while Peter Fleming was fighting in Greece to slow the German advance, Ian could lay claim to being at the heart of Royal Navy espionage efforts. For the first time, he may have felt himself the equal of his older brother.

By the end of the war, Ian had a stockpile of ideas for the spy novel he’d always wanted to write. Each James Bond novel has roots which harken back to WWII. 

Early in his Royal Navy career, Ian had watched M16 double agent Duško Popov run a massive baccarat bluff at the Casino Estoril in Portugal. Popov placed a huge fifty thousand dollar bet to unnerve an unpleasant opponent. Fleming was astounded, and more than a decade later that scene was recreated in the opening of his first book, Casino Royale, which was written between February 17 and March 18, 1952, at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica. Coming in at 43,790 words, it’s more novella than novel. 

Popov was a daring spy and a dashing playboy. He is one of the many real-life agents it is thought Fleming based James Bond on. Bond also shared many of Ian’s own attributes. He smoked the same cigarettes, drank the same liquor, used the same barber, was the same height, and shared the same rank in the Royal Navy.

Fleming himself had very specific ideas as to what Bond should look like. Early on, he likened Bond’s looks to the entertainer Hoagy Carmichael. 

Fleming also commissioned a sketch of James Bond for a comic strip that ran in British newspapers. This is what he thought Bond should look like.

I think it’s pretty obvious who James Bond really was. Fleming described 007 as having dark, clean-cut looks, cold grey-blue eyes, straight black brows, and a "cruel" mouth. Meet Peter Fleming in close-up. Need we look further?

No one can ever really know, but I have the feeling that Ian finally figured out how to one-up his older brother. By combining Peter’s good looks with his own wartime experiences, Ian crafted a persona that no one could ever get the better of. Accomplished in both the civilized graces and the brutal underworld of espionage, Bond stands alone. 

Ian Fleming was no longer dethroned.

What Fleming accomplished was also important for readers in his native Britain. As postwar Great Britain faced a reordering of global power, Bond carried forward the flag of the Empire with style and panache He masked the national decline and made London the center of world again, if only on the page and the silver screen.

As Carly Simon sang in the theme for the 1977 film “The Spy Who Loved Me,”

Nobody does it better

Makes me feel sad for the rest

Nobody does it half as good as you

Baby, you're the best.

Well, that does it for my armchair psychoanalysis. But as an only child, how can I be certain of anything about brothers and sisters? So tell me, my sibling-supplied friends, what do you make of this - would there have been a James Bond without Peter Fleming? Does sibling rivalry spur healthy competition?

Signing off, it's me.

Benn. James Benn

James R. Benn is the USA Today best-selling author is the author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries. The debut, Billy Boyle, was selected as a Top Five Book of the Year by Book Sense and was a Dilys Award nominee, A Blind Goddess was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, The Rest Is Silence was a Barry Award nominee, and The Devouring was a Macavity Award nominee.

In The Ninth Circle (number 21 in the series) Billy Boyle is thrust into an investigation of a murdered Royal Navy intelligence officer in Havana. He is brought in by none other than Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, who needs a fresh set of eyes to gather intel from sources inside Havana’s criminal underworld, including the notorious gangster Meyer Lansky. As the body count grows, it becomes evident a Nazi spying is behind the violence.

End of Summer Reading

 LUCY BURDETTE: I hope all of your summers are going well! I’m a little horrified to see how quickly September is bearing down on us. Is it time for a quick summer reading check in? I think so! 

I loved Ann Patchett’s Whistler, though John is close to finishing and isn’t quite as enamored. For his birthday, I bought him Chris Bohjalian’s THE AMATEUR, and promptly stole it to read first. The story is about a promising girl golfer at a chi-chi country club who accidentally drives a ball through a practice net and kills a young caddy. He writes from the perspective of the young woman who is an absolute train wreck. It’s exciting and horrifying and gripping. Next I read Kristen Harmel’s MEET ME IN PARIS, which had 7 protagonists all arriving in Paris for very different life-changing reasons. I zipped through it, loving the Paris background, but would have preferred fewer, but deeper characters. Right now I’m reading a pickleball mystery by Zac Bissonette for a blurb—clever and funny and I can’t wait to see if pickleball enthusiasts embrace it. It will be out from Kensington in 2027. Next up will either be Barbara O’Neal’s A THOUSAND PAINTED HOURS or Kent Krueger’s new Cork O’Connor. Can’t wait for both of them! By then Hank's MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER should be on my doorstep–hooray!

JENN McKINLAY: How funny! I’m reading Zac Bissonette’s DINK OR DIE! mystery as well. Having just started playing pickleball, I’m really enjoying it. I’m also reading Mia Sosa’s romance THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA and Ellie Alexander’s upcoming mystery MURDER MOVES IN. As you can see, all of my reading at the moment is advance reader copies for potential endorsements. I feel very lucky and reassured that so many good books are coming out in the coming months. Of course, I can't wait to get my hands on Hank's upcoming MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER, dropping on Sept 1st. A perfect thriller just in time for autumn, which is my favorite season for suspense novels.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Awww, thank you, Jenn! I am so excited! Cannot wait to read The Amateur, it is in my pile staring at me. And Jennifer Hillier's HEART OF GLASS. I have Tess Gerritsen’s book up next, THE SHADOW FRIENDS. Love her, and this new one in her series about retired CIA agents banding together is terrific. And then HOW TO WRITE A MURDER by Jessica Brody–one of the authors I’ll be interviewing soon. Also Jason Rekulak’s now one,in advance of interviewing him soon, too.! It’s called LOOK WHAT THE CAT DRAGGED IN. So funny! But his books are wonderfully creepy. I am also stacked with blurb requests and books for contests. La dee dah. But I am so happy about it!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Eeek. Since Jenn, Rhys, and Lucy’s books, I seem to have lost my reading mojo. I checked my journal and there were three books I started but didn’t finish: One called THE OTHER MOTHERS, a British thriller by an author whose name I didn’t note, Jo Piazza’s THE SICILIAN INHERITANCE, and Julia Kelly’s THE LAST GARDEN IN ENGLAND, which had been sitting on my bedside table for yonks. I liked all of these, but just couldn’t seem to pick up speed. This had me really worried, but then I got a book I’d preordered, the sixteenth in Damien Boyd’s Nick Dixon series, called SEEING RED, and I powered through it in two days! So the other books just hadn’t been the right fit for the moment, but I hope to go back to them. The Nick Dixon books are British procedurals–I’m sure I’ve mentioned them before–and I highly recommend if you like that sort of thing.

I have a copy of HEATHER by Caitlin Mullen up next, so fingers crossed on that one.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I so enjoyed THE ENDING WRITES ITSELF, a classic “country house” mystery set on a private island in Scotland, where a group of authors compete to write the ending to a bestselling series. It’s by Emilia Clarke, the pen name of Cate Clarke and fantasy writer VE Schwab, and they stick the ending, despite this being their first mystery.

I’ve set a goal for myself to get back to some of the books in my library I picked up and set aside; so one of my recent reads is RED HILL (2013) by Jamie McGuire. She’s done mostly supernatural adventures and romance since then, but her debut is a cracking science-gone-wrong zombie thriller.

Speaking of science gone wrong, my nonfiction read is BIOLOGIAL WARFARE: A SCENARIO by Annie Jacobsen. Do not read this if you’re prone to the heebie-jeebies! Otherwise, it’s a brilliant, bleak look at the possible results of the release of biological weapons still held by many countries.

On a much more fun note, I’m combining two of my faves - mystery and SF - and catching up with the latest in Mur Lafferty’s Midsolar Murder series. In INFINITE ARCHIVE, our sleuth has to deal with a sentient ship carrying all Earth’s Internet archives (shades of the AI data centers!!) and a mystery con on her space station. These are delightful novels, perfect for fans of either (and both) genres.

HALLIE EPHRON: As I’ve mentioned here, I’m in the throes of downsizing, making room for others to move in with me, addressing accumulated decades. The books are so hard to part with but books you haven’t cracked open in ages have got to go. And then there are the keepers. Which I’m working my way through.

One of them is an anthology of Agatha Christie short stories, “Masterpieces in Miniature.” It’s a collection of 40 shorts, and I’m having a lovely time revisiting the antics of Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Parker Payne, and Harley Quinn. I’ve never been much of a short story reader, and I thought I was familiar with all of Dame Agatha’s tricks. Not so!

Plus it’s refreshing to read something that I don’t have to commit to focusing my attention on for 300 pages, given how much there is to distract me around here.

So far, Parker Pyne is a snarky revelation. Who knew!?!?

RHYS BOWEN: Like Hallie I have had little time for reading. I too am in the throes of rearranging the entire house so that my daughter can move in. This involves repainting and recarpeting John’s former study, moving my media room there, making old media room into guest bedroom and reflooring the two rooms that Anne will have as her private space. We have already filled one dumpster with unwanted items kept for years by my husband. Brochures from a tour he sent to Nepal in 1980! So much to go through and decide what was important to family history and what wasn’t.

All this is an excuse for not reading much. And when I have had time to read it has been to blurb two books: Rocket Girl by Diane Vallere and Year of Lipstick and Poetry by… name escapes me. The former good, and similar to Lessons in Chemistry. The latter only just starting and a bit slow going so far. As a mystery writer I expect to find a body at some stage!  

Reds, please pile on and tell us what you’re reading!

Do Old Habits Die Hard?

 RHYS BOWEN:  Like many of you I belong to several Facebook groups: historical novels, Friends and Fiction, book clubs etc.  And I’m struck by something that surprises me. When I read comments on a post that says “what is the best book you’ve read this year?” the answers are not all newish books. One person answered Prince of Tides. Several mentioned Rosamund Pilcher.  This makes me wonder if these people maybe don’t read any more but want to be part of the conversation? Or they go to the library and choose random books?  Or… have a really large TBR stack???

I have to admit that I do reread old favorites and they are still favorites, but most of what I read has come out in the past couple of years. I always seem to have a book to blurb that hasn’t even been published yet, then there are all my friends’ books, plus new books by my go-to authors. 

I also realise, as I write this, that I don’t use libraries any more.  It’s so easy to click on Kindle and there is the book, ready to read. It’s a shame because I used to adore libraries. When I had small kids the library was my magic portal. I’d find my next Tony Hillerman or Mary Stewart and couldn’t wait to get home to start reading  (confession, I sometimes started in the car outside the library). I also stumbled across books I hadn’t known about. That cover looks interesting… give it a try. 

During my early writing years libraries were also my go-to for reference. Anything that I couldn’t find on the shelves I asked the reference librarian and together we sleuthed out the answer. In an early adult novel I wanted to know when elastic was invented. My hero was undressing the heroine! Could he just pull down her underwear or did he have to untie it? We searched and found that yes, elastic has been invented but it was only being used for the sides of boots at the time!

Now I do all my research online. For my Molly books with Clare we access the archives of the New York Times. It’s all so easy but I do miss my library visits. 

So what about you, Reds and Reddies? Do you still visit your local library regularly? And is your reading mostly from newish books?

HALLIE EPHRON: I do visit my library VERY regularly. I volunteer in the library bookstore which is stuffed with books donated by library patrons and sold for a few bucks a pop (or during “bag” sale week, $10 a bag). It generates a nice extra-income stream for the library.

But I can’t go in looking for a particular book. (The newly published ones that I find in book reviews I download onto my Kindle, sadly skipping the library or the bookstore.) I surrender to the complete serendipity of what’s there and what catches my eye. Often another shopper or volunteer or librarian steers me to whatever I end up taking home. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: As a kid I was always always in the library, the one at school or the one in town. But now my connection with fabulous and life changing libraries mostly comes from doing events for them or appearing at them.   I am devoted and in love with libraries, as you can see in ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS, where some of the key scenes take place in libraries and with librarians.

My reading now, though, is almost always of new books..and most often, books that have not been published yet but are in the galley-for-a-blurb stage. Or for an author I am interviewing for one of my shows.

In fact, the weird thing about my reading is that I hardly ever get to “choose” a book to read anymore–they are mostly all homework! Assigned reading for a blurb or event or interview. I do love it–because it often requires me to read a book I might not have chosen on my own, and that can be wonderful.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am very embarrassed to admit that I do not use my local library–and I love libraries!! I was hoping when our main, and also nearest me, library branch opened a new facility more than twenty years ago that it would be a pleasant place to take my laptop for some good writing time, but unlike some other wonderful area libraries, they really didn't provide that. And now that library has been undergoing massive renovation for the last couple of years, so I'm crossing fingers that it will be a more welcoming place when it's finished.

As for taking out library books, I get zero points on that score, too. I love to browse in libraries, but I always have so many things I have to read, and when I used to check out books I could never find time to return them. I have aspirations to improve when our branch opens again! 

LUCY BURDETTE: But Debs, you should not feel bad that you don’t take books out of the library because you buy them like mad, and read them too!! (I’m in your camp:)

I spend a good bit of time in my hometown libraries for events, both mine and the Friends of Library etc. The renovated Madison CT library has wonderful places to work, and I go there when I’ve dropped Lottie off at the groomer and don’t want to waste time driving. They also have an amazing children’s area, which our grandkids love when they come to visit. Key West is more crowded–I’m afraid I’d end up chatting the day away!

As for what to read next, I’m on dozens of book recommendation lists (including Jungle Reds), and I listen to a few pals who read like mad and have similar tastes. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I still use my regional library, Portland Public, and approach it as Hallie does, looking for a new and interesting title I hadn’t heard of. Their new novel shelves are invaluable. My first priority is for blurbs or if I’m doing an author interview, then I try to keep up with friends, and THEN I try to keep abreast of what’s new and selling. Hank’s list of what she’s reading is invaluable for this last purpose!

However, sometimes I want to settle in with something I know I’ll love, and that’s when I re-read Rosemary Pilcher and Lois McMaster Bujold. In addition, I’m one of those folks who likes to re-read at least the last book in a series when a new one comes out - and if the author, ahem, takes her time between books like I do, I may re-read all of her prior novels featuring the same cast of characters!

JENN McKINLAY: My library is my area of temporary refuge. When I can’t concentrate at home, I go to my local library where I have a specific study carrel where I sit to get my writing done. I love it. As for books, I browse the shelves to see what’s popular and I check out books I’m not certain I want to buy.

RHYS: Well, Jenn, you know all about magical libraries. I suppose all libraries are magical in. a way. They are portals to so many worlds. In fact the book I've just turned in, next year's stand-alone novel, takes place in a fabulous library in a British stately home. Imagine owning a library with every antique book you could think of.  You wouldn't want to sell those books, would you? But my character might have to, unless.... It's calle THE LANGUAGE OF LOST BIRDS.

So what about you, Reddies? Do you still use libraries? And do you read mainly new books or revisit classics or old favorites?

Which Places do we Love?

 RHYS BOWEN: As you now know, my new book, THE CASTLE IN THE GLEN  is set in Scotland. I’d been wanting to set a story there for some time but couldn’t find any story idea that would fit until now. So I was delighted to send my heroine, Emma, up to the Isle of Skye to experience that atmospheric scenery as she tries to solve an old murder case. 

Scotland is one of those places that draws people…that mix of wild scenery, mists, storms, Celtic heritage and traditions and a wee bit of magic thrown in. We love to think about storm kelpies, shape shifters and small towns that only appear once every hundred years. When you set a story in such a place you start with a degree of expectation and even a sense of danger. Perfect for a mystery.

Thinking about this it’s interesting to me that some settings seem to resonate with readers more than others. Two of my books that have sold the most copies are the Tuscan Child, The Venice Sketchbook. There is something about Tuscany and Venice that draws people. We get a clear picture of hilltop towns, of canals and bridges. And of course they come with all the history and romance too. When you open a book about Tuscany you expect history, romance, sweeping vistas. If I set a book in Cleveland Ohio, I’d have to work hard to take my reader there.

Other places that seem to have instant appeal are Paris, of course. So many books with Paris in the title (yes, I’m guilty too). And look at Jenn’s Paris is Always a Good Idea, which I’m loving on TV!!! Then there is  the English countryside. Set a book in the Cotswolds or Cornwall and people will want to read it.  The other one is Nantucket. How many books have I seen recently with titles like The Nantucket Summer, the Nantucket Heartbreak. Now I’ve been to Nantucket and it is charming but there are so many charming villages up and down that coast. Why not the Gloucester Summer, the Kennebunkport Romance? I suppose Nantucket is an island, which makes it more appealing.

So I’d like your take on this: how important is setting to you? Is deciding on setting one of the things you do first? Or do you create your characters and then decide where to put them? Have you ever wished you’d set a book somewhere else? Why do you think certain places seem to draw in readers more than others? 

LUCY BURDETTE: I adored the Isle of Skye in your new book Rhys, but then all of your standalone titles have had wonderful settings. But think about Ann Cleeves for a minute. I suspect her best-selling series is the Shetland books, though I don’t know that for a fact. I like the backdrops in Vera and Two Rivers, but Shetland really stands out. You might remember that I took my family there a few years back because of Ann’s mysteries. It’s just as spectacular as she describes it, both in words and in the TV series. Kent Kreuger is also a master at setting–mostly the boundary waters of Minnesota. He’s able to use the setting to magnify the darkness of the books–this happens with Icelandic authors too.

Key West is different because it isn’t dark, at least on the surface. The contrast makes it an amazing place to set books. You don’t expect crime in such a beautiful place! Lots of my readers have been there once and the books allow them to travel back to a place they love. That’s how I feel about Paris!

HALLIE EPHRON: Scotland! Key West! Miss Marple’s St. Mary Meade! Philip Marlowe, Easy Rawlins, Harry Bosch, none of them could be rooted anywhere but Los Angeles. 

When I was writing my first novel I mistakenly thought that setting was “window dressing” - you needed characters to be rooted. But there’s so much more to it than that.So many great mystery novels, in particular, are particularly great because of the setting. (Hoping to one day to hang out with Cara Black in Paris on one of her tours of Aimée LeDuc’s hangouts.) Rhys, you totally ace it with THE CASTLE IN THE GLEN. *AND* we get to visit it in two timelines!!

JENN McKINLAY: Thank you for taking me vicariously to the Isle of Skye, Rhys! It’s on my list but this was so much easier than actually booking a flight. 

Setting is huge for me as an author. I like to write about places I want to visit because…research trip! As a reader, I definitely enjoy a well written setting but I’m more open to different places because I don’t have to write about them – if that makes sense.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I had the joy of taking myself to the Berkshires (in my imagination and memory)  for MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER, and it is fascinating how my lived experiences there for so many summers came back in the loveliest ways–and sometimes,  the scariest. And when you are actually there, you see and hear and experience things that make it so authentic. The turn of a phrase, or someone’s nickname, or how the windows fog up when you go inside.  

SO funny–the opposite works, too. When I wrote ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS, Tessa had to go to Des Moines. (too long to explain) I had never been to Des Moines, so I researched  like mad and it turned out that the Des Moines Public Library (and its surroundings) became the setting for several crucial scenes. So of course I went there on book tour, and I laughed for a solid hour. Because it looked exactly like how I had written it in the book! It was SO funny! I kept  thinking: My book is REAL!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Setting is SO important! One of my early influences was Tony Hillerman; there’s nothing in his books - character, crime, economy, dangers - that doesn’t flow out of the setting. Yes, there are times I wish I had written a series that took place somewhere other than the chilly Adirondack piedmont, usually when one of you are taking a research trip to the French Riviera or the English countryside!

There’s an interesting example of setting in Lee Child’s ONE SHOT. The midwestern city where the action takes place is never named, but Lee got the small details and the vibe so right multiple readers over the years have sworn it takes place in Columbus, or Cincinnati, or Omaha, or Kansas City, etc, etc. A lesson in how the particulars and the feel of a place make the setting for the reader, not the street names and locations.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: You couldn't have picked a more atmospheric setting than the Isle of Skye, Rhys! And what a fabulous place to "have" to do research!

I'm a sucker for setting, both as a reader and a writer. Setting has almost always been the first trigger for my books, a place that tickled my imagination, sometimes one already familiar and sometimes one I've wanted an excuse to visit. And I have to admit I'm most likely to pick up a book by an unfamiliar author if the setting appeals. Now, why we are attracted to certain places more than others is its own mystery…

RHYS: Now it's your turn. How important is setting to you? Are there some settings that instantly draw you to a book?

You Say Tomato, I Say Yes!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Do any of you grow tomatoes?

Should the tomatoes be ready now?

We planted them, just as we usually do, not as many as in previous years, but whatever. And we usually plant Sun Golds, which are those little orange cherry tomatoes, which are so sweet and so delicious and I adore them. And grew like mad.

But we couldn’t find them this year, and I reminded myself that everything doesn’t have to be exactly the same every year, so go with the flow.


So we got another kind, I forget the name, and I have to say this is a different experience.

First of all, this plant, this particular plant, was never happy. It is in a perfect tomato place, many plants have thrived here before, but this one, I could tell from moment one, was not enthusiastic.

It produced two little tomatoes, bigger than a cherry tomato but not as big as a big tomato, and they were growing nicely, even as the leaves were giving up the ghost.

They tried to grow, but yeah, they were not happy. See all the yellow leaves? And it had just the right amount of water and sun.

It tried, it really did, but I could hear the death rattle. I picked one of the tomatoes, the redder one, while it was still too green, after the rabbits got the other one. 

We put it on the windowsill to ripen, and here it is. Next to a peach. You can see the size. ::shaking head:: It did the best it could.

As for our other tomatoes, they look like Roma tomatoes, that Italian tomato shape. They are still super tiny. Should they be so super tiny still?

Even the grocery store, Whole Foods, does not have those fabulous tomatoes that I long for every year.   Why? Even the heirlooms are not tasty.

One of my favorite things in the world is tomato toast. It is toast, with tomatoes on it. No mayonnaise, no butter, no anything. Just toast and tomatoes. The tomato juice sinks into the toast, and it is ambrosial.

But the better the tomato, the better the tomato toast, and so far we are at 80% good.

What’s your tomato situation, Reds and Readers? Are you as fond of them as I am?

((PS: AND THE WINNER of HER PERFECT LIFE IN gulp, mass markeet paperback is : DEE! Email me your address at hank@hankphillippiryan.com)

Books On The Path to Extinction?

 Did you enter the JUNGLE RED GIVEAWAY?  Winner announced below!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  It’s topical not only because the trade paperback of  ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS comes out tomorrow--see how cool?-- but there's a whole sea change about paperbacks right now that's pretty interesting.

There used to be two kinds of paperbacks: a trade, which is about the size of a hardcover book, and the mass market, the kind you could fit in your back pocket or in your purse or in the glove compartment. If you took in it your beach bag and got sand in it, or if it got dropped into the bathtub, you really didn’t care. They were kind of… disposable. 

All of my books have come out first in hardcover and e-book and audio, and then additionally  in trade paperback size, and then a year after the initial publication of the hardcover, in mass market paperback. (See? ARC, hardcover, trade PB, MMPB, and audio CD.)

But no more. No more mass market paperbacks. Done and over, and extinct. So they say.

So weird! You could buy them, though, in grocery stores and drugstores, too, and they were perfect impulse buys. I completely remember gasping with delight when I saw my books in the CVS, and in Star Market. It just made them seem like real books. And like I was a real author.

But after you read them, then what? I just found my battered mass market of In Cold Blood-- you can see I’d tried to use tape to keep the cover on, and failed.  But I do love this book, and it is a permanent fixture around here. 

It’s hard to donate paperbacks, because they are so battered so easily. And it’s hard to throw them away because, well, they’re books. And how could I throw away this shelf in my house:

or this one:

or this one?

ANYWAY. It’s not going to matter anymore, because as I said, they’re not going to make them anymore. 

 Tell me what you’ve heard are the reasons, but I heard that during the pandemic the paper costs went way up, and the administrative cost to make them and ship them from China went way up, and they were not cost-effective, and people were using Kindle instead.

So as a result, the big distributors decided they weren’t going to distribute them anymore. And as a result of that the publishers decided they weren’t going to print them anymore.

What do you think about that? Will it change your life? Will it change your reading? Will it change your buying habits? Do you have any mass market paperbacks that you will never part with?

HALLIE EPHRON: I’m sure it’s a business decision on the part of publishers. Pumping out an ebook costs so much less (no paper, no printing, no shipping and warehousing…) And I get it – over time I’ve become much more likely to download an ebook than buy a hard copy. Still I miss that mass market size – a book I could tuck in my pocket and then leave behind in my hotel room for the next lucky visitor. Buy in the airport and finish by wheels-down.

LUCY BURDETTE: I have a fondness for mass market paperbacks because my first eight books came out in that format. However, I understand this is a totally financial decision. I’ve learned to step back when the publishing gurus say something is gone because before you know it, it will be back again! Personally, I find them hard to read because the type is so small. But I get it that books have gotten so expensive that it’s hard for people to fit hard covers and big paperbacks into the budget.

RHYS BOWEN:  My early books came out as MM paperbacks a year after the hardcover but switched to trade paperbacks around ten years ago.. I think mm paperbacks fell out of favor because the type is too small for older readers, also because it’s harder to hold them open without their falling to  pieces. Personally I choose e-books over trade paperbacks. And if I’m buying it’s the hardcover. Not that much more expensive and looks better on the shelf. 

My Lake Union books come out in all formats on the same day. Strange but true. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: My books have only been trade and hardcover for a long time, but the early ones were hardcover and then mass market. But I think e-books now fill the mass market budget category and I suppose it makes sense for the publishers to discontinue the format. I’ve held on to some mass markets over the years, many of them out of print and irreplaceable, but when I’ve tried to read them the pages are yellowed and the print is too small. Maybe they will now be valuable to collectors?

Personally, I read in all formats, hardcover, trade, e-books, audio books, but I especially love trade paper. Still easy to carry around, but I don’t have to worry about leaving my Kindle–or worse, my iPad–somewhere!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: So many paperbacks! I still have them on shelves, in the attic, in boxes in the back of closets. I just can’t seem to make myself throw them away. 

I agree that the “affordable, and I don’t want to invest in a ‘good’ book” market’s been taken over by ebooks, but they will never replace the joy of spending hours in Owl Used Books lovingly going over each and every title to come up with five for one dollar. Not to mention the thrill of finding something interesting left behind by a traveller at a B and B, hotel room, or airport lounge. Ah, well. Tempus fugit, I guess.

JENN McKINLAY: Mass Market Paperbacks were all I read in high school and college because the price was right and the portability unbeatable. Alas, that print is so dinky, I much prefer trade or hardcover now. I was a heavy e-book reader for a decade but I’m so burnt out from screens that I just want a book to read. 

HANK: AND if YOU want a book to read:  BREAKING NEWS:  the winner of the very first Jungle Red Quarterly Giveaway is Diane W!    Diane@W**********.com       Diane, email me at hank@hankphillippiryan.com and send me your address–and SEVEN books will come your way!

And to all who entered–we are so thrilled! And we hope you enjoy our personal newsletters!

Now, Reds and Readers, what do you think about mass market paperbacks? Are there any that you will never give up? Will this decision change your life? (And one lucky commenter will get a MMPB of my thriller HER PERFECT LIFE! See? It's now a collector's item!)