What We're Writing: Debs on Cars and Characters

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I want to talk about cars. This is partly because I just bought a new car, the first in 17 YEARS, which some of my fellow REDs will be fed up hearing me talk about!  But also because the very emotionally weighty business of making that choice got me thinking about the cars (or the historical equivalents) we give our fictional characters and what it says about them.

In my very first Kincaid/James book I gave Duncan a classic, if slightly worn, red MG Midget. It looked like this.

This is the car my ex and I owned when we lived in England. I never drove it much, because a) right-hand drive, and b) the driver's seat springs were so sprung that I couldn't see out the windscreen! But it was fun, on a sunny day, driving with the top down along the Cheshire lanes in search of afternoon tea. Not so fun when it rained and the top leaked...

So it was partly familiarity that made me give Duncan this car. I also liked that he is a tall guy and I had an image of him disentangling himself from the little low MG. In the very first scene in the book he is driving through the Yorkshire countryside with the top down on a perfect autumn day, a picture of the romantic detective.

There was, on the other hand, nothing sexy about Gemma's little Ford Escort. This was a budget, single-mom-with-baby car and you could imagine the safety seat in the back and the detritus of spare nappies, teething biscuits, and juice drinks.

In short, Duncan was a cool if slightly eccentric guy, and Gemma was underpaid, overwhelmed, and over worked.

Eventually, their lives joined and moved on. With the advent of dogs and children, the Midget no longer suited and Duncan accepted a hand-me-down from his parents, an elderly green Vauxhall estate car. In American parlance, a station wagon, and about as nerdily uncool as one could get, much to now-teenaged Kit's humiliation. 

When the Astra came to an untimely--or timely, depending on your point of view--end, it was Gemma who got the long-deserved new car, a Land Rover Discovery the same copper color as her hair, and Duncan who was left with the little orchid-colored Ford runabout. I spent a lot of time picking out that fictional new car for Gemma--almost as much as I spent picking out my own! But these cars are more than cars, they are a snapshot of the characters' personalities and of the progress--and balance--of their relationship.

So what does the fact that I drove my green Honda Accord for seventeen years say about me? If I was a character in a book, would I be frugal, dull, totally uninterested in cars, or in my image? Or would it say that I form lasting emotional attachments? None of the first things are entirely true, but the second maybe more so--I did love the Accord. And I do, actually, really like cars, and had been daydreaming about something that was a little sporty as well as practical, and RED, so this is what I bought!

With a "parchment", aka white, interior, just to prove I have a thoroughly impractical streak.

So, darling Reds, do you think about what your characters' cars say about them?

And readers, do you notice what cars fictional characters drive, and do those cars lead you to make assumptions? Do you have favorite cars in books?

(Two of my fictional heroes, Inspector Morse and Thomas Nightingale, drive classic Jaguars!)

PS! The car is a Mazda CX-5 in Soul Red Crystal.

PSS!!! I almost forgot the writing update! Besides car shopping, I have been writing!! I'm about to hit 80,000 words, which may not mean much to readers but fellow writers will recognize as a good progress marker, a good two-thirds of the book. I'm reaching the point where, as  Hank said on Monday, I've passed, "Do I really have enough for a book?" and tipped over into, "Oh my God, how am I ever going to get it all in????"

Next time I will try to find a snippet, and we will hope I'll be closing in on THE END.

What We're Writing--Debs Does Interior Design

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys's post this week on researching the details of her book-in-progress got me thinking about what I need to see in real life versus what I make up out of whole cloth, or a combination thereof. Since I write about actual places, I usually stick pretty close to the real thing when I'm describing exterior settings, and I do my best to see the settings in person. I'm a big proponent of boots-on-the-ground.

But interiors are a different story! There is so much freedom there! I love writing about rooms, and I've often said that my fantasy job is to be a set designer for films or TV--what fun to bring characters and time periods to life through their spaces and belongings. Think about the new version of All Creatures Great and Small, for instance--I would watch that just to see the rooms in Skeldale House. They are so perfect, and they tell us so much about the people living there. 

We had parts of a movie shot in our house once and that was such an interesting experience. The film was low budget so I'm not sure they had an actual set designer, but whoever was in charge of sets brought in odds and ends of things, which they mixed with our stuff. In one scene in our living room, the actors drink tea from our Blue Calico porcelain, which I thought rather an odd choice for these particular characters, and it was bizarre to see our living room not looking quite like our living room! Our guest room became a teenage boy's room--amazing the transformation wrought by a few bits of sports memorabilia.

Some of my interiors are based on places I have been in person. The B&B in Now May You Weep, for example, with its over abundance of purple tartans, was based on a place I stayed (alas, now closed) in the village of Boat of Garten in the Scottish Highlands.

I'm addicted to British home magazines and I get ideas for rooms and houses from the feature spreads and even the ads. I wish I could show you the room that served as the inspiration for the gorgeous blue and pink sitting room in A Bitter Feast's Beck House, but I'm afraid I might get us in trouble for copyright violation.  (Also, I can't find the magazine!)

Sometimes, there's a fun inspiration within an inspiration. This is the corner of our sunporch. The poster features artist Stephanie Woolley, whose lovely work I attributed (with her permission) to artist Julia Swann in Leave the Grave Green. But it's also a nod to the sucession of gray tabbies in our lives--we seem to be magnets for them. (And please excuse my sad plant--that one is not doing the poster justice!)

And sometimes I just have a room in my mind, a place I've never been or seen in a photo, but that seems so real I can't believe it doesn't exist. Here's a very rough snippet from a scene in the book-in-progress (Kincaid/James #20) where we find Melody Talbot waking from a sleep in Hazel Cavendish's sitting room.

Hours later, it was sound that began to filter into her awareness first. There was the soft murmur of a radio, BB4, she thought, which made her think of her dad. Was she in the Kensington townhouse? No, the gentle clink of crockery brought it back. She was in Hazel’s bungalow, and there was the scent of something delicious baking—was it bread? And beneath that, something savory, perhaps a soup or casserole, that smelled of garlic and unfamiliar spices.

Tendrils of some pleasant dream still flickered at the edge of her consciousness, and her body felt heavy and languorous in a way she had almost forgotten. With an effort, she forced her eyes to open a fraction. The light in the room had changed, golden now rather than green-tinted as it had been in the morning, when it had been filtered by the potted lemon trees in the courtyard.

God, how long had she slept? What time was it? Was that the evening news on the radio? As her heart began its familiar racing, she struggled to sit up. Hazel had covered her with a red tartan throw blanket and the black cat had moved to the far end of the rose-patterned sofa, where he slept half on her feet. Tentatively, Melody extricated her right foot and flexed it—numb. No wonder it had felt so odd.

Edging free of cat and blanket, she swung her legs down and felt the rough texture of sisal matting beneath her bare feet. When had she taken off her shoes? Blinking her sticky eyes, she took in more of her surroundings. She saw now that Hazel had placed large potted plants either side of the tiny blue-tiled fireplace, a touch that made the bungalow feel as if the garden had been transported inside.

As if alerted by some sixth sense, Hazel came into the room. “Ah, you’re awake. I’ve just put the kettle on.”

Hazel's rose-patterned sofa I saw ages ago in an Ikea catalogue (most of Hazel's furniture came from Ikea) but the rest is purely from the depths of my subconscious.

Fellow writers, where do you get the ideas for the interiors you describe?

Readers, do you pay attention to these details? Do you feel they give you a sense of the characters?

Rancho Pillow--Round Top, Round 2

DEBORAH CROMBIE: When my daughter and friend and I went to Round Top for the first time back in 2017, I was just getting stuck in writing A BITTER FEAST, Kincaid/James #18, and it was only by accident that we did something that would end up playing a big part in the book.  It so happened that we'd bought tickets to a dinner at a place called Rancho Pillow, a ranch property now run as a very quirky motel a few miles outside of the tiny town of Round Top. Here's the view looking over the fields from the ranch. So peaceful!

The guest chef for that 2017 dinner, Robert Lyford, was actually local to us here at home in McKinney, so we were very excited to see what Robert had in store for us.

It was a fabulous dinner, and Robert's menu was a huge inspiration for chef Viv Holland's charity lunch menu in A BITTER FEAST.

Here's a little snippet from the book describing some of the food:

Even with the quirky presentation, the food, Gemma had to admit, had been divine. From the creamy, smoky trout spread, to the delicate salad with roasted pears, caramel, and a local blue cheese, to the meltingly tender lamb and white beans served in camping tins, it had been of absolute star quality. What, Gemma had to wonder, was a chef so talented doing in this tiny village?

She nibbled at the last bit of her pudding. The little jam jar she’d chosen had held a mixed berry crumble with a tangy layer of crème fraiche—a dessert she suspected she’d find herself dreaming about. All around her, spoons were being laid down and empty jars examined in hopes of finding a smidgen more.

So this year, when Kayti and I had a chance to book tickets for the Rancho Pillow Feast in the Field again, we jumped at it.

Here we are pre-dinner, toasting our trip. 

And resting our poor feet after a day of shopping at Marburger Farm.

(I should probably interject here to say that half the fun of the whole Round Top event is playing dress up. It's cowboy boots (my vintage Wranglers!), hats, denim, and skirts or dresses. And lots of turquoise jewelry. Believe me, it's a thing, and we did it up properly.)

Kayti demonstrates!

The Feast in the Field dinners have grown considerably since our first one, when there was only one long table. Now there are three!

So festive, with eclectic table settings that I borrowed for the book from the previous dinner as well. (The yurt is part of the motel accomodation!)

This year the chef was a woman, Karla Subera-Pittol, from the LA restaurant Chainsaw, and all the food was smoked or cooked over open fires. 

Here's Karla cooking.

And some mystery ingredient we never identified.

What do you suppose that was? Below are pinapples and cabbages smoking, and the big smoker where the meat was cooked.

It was all delicious, and we had a great time, the best part of which was the communal dining and making new friends. We don't sit down with strangers often enough in our everyday lives. It turned out the husband of the couple who sat across from us graduated from Austin College, my tiny north Texas university whose enrollment tops out at about 1200 students, the same year I did! Alas, we didn't know each other back then. He was psychology and I was biology and our paths didn't cross, but it was a lovely coincidence that evening.

As Ellen Crosby mentioned earlier this week, writers have to do more than write. It's getting out in the world and experiencing things that gives us grist for the mill. I don't know that this dinner will play a specific part in a book (unless that mysterious ingredient comes into one somewhere...) but you never know. I am open for it!

REDs and writer friends, have chance adventures become major parts of books? And readers, have you had memorable communal meals?

 

Deliriously Rose

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  Spring makes me giddy, and nothing about it makes me giddier than roses, and especially the English ones. 

                                   (Munstead Wood with Graham Thomas, Lady of Shallot in the back.)

I've been trying to trace the history of this love affair. It didn't start in childhood, that's for sure. I don't remember us having any roses when I was growing up. My dad planted bedding plants and flower pots, and my mom didn't garden at all. There was a glorious Lady Banks on the fence of the garage apartment where I lived in college--maybe that was the first. Then fast forward through houses and years to this house, twenty-six years ago, and the first few mail-order roses. Only two survive, a mystery pink hybrid tea, and this Simplicity from Jackson and Perkins.

Many more followed. Some thrived, some didn't, but I was hooked. Then a few years ago we lost most of them to the rose rosette virus.

Anyone with any sense would have folded at that point and replanted with something entirely different, but I'd discovered the English rose breeder David Austin's roses, and I couldn't resist them.

                                                  (Gertrude Jekyll, Lady of Shallot.)

Graham Thomas was the very first, still with me. (It's the yellow one.)

Just the names of the Austin roses read like poetry:

I have Lady of Shallot. Munstead Wood. Princess Alexandra of Kent. Abraham Darby.

Gertrude Jekyll--named after the Arts and Crafts garden designer, thorny as all-get out with a divine scent.

Benjamin Britten, after the composer, a massive climber in an almost neon coral red.

St. Swithun's, named after a Saxon bishop, another climber. It's a pale, pale creamy pink, and smells like licorice. I love this one so much I gave it to Melody's parents in  A BITTER FEAST. This bloom I put in the little vase on my piano last week--doesn't it look like a painting?

The Fisherman's Friend, a deep crimson, with a glorious old rose scent. This one was my splurge last spring, my pandemic rose.

 

But there are always more, if I can just find a place to put them!

This year I went bonkers and ordered three: Crown Princess Margareta, a gold climber; Heathcliff, a deep red (how could I resist that name?); and Boscobel, a smaller coral pink, named after Boscobel House where Charles II hid during the English Civil War.

I suppose there are worse passions... But it is a very visceral thing--it's like feasting on color, shape, scent, and language. They are calling to me...The Lark Ascending, Charles Darwin, Desdemona, The Poet's Wife...

REDS and readers, is there anything in your garden--or your balcony, or even a pot or a bouquet, that makes you swoon?

 

What We're Writing--Debs and the Difficult Duo

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I have loved being gripped by Lucy's and Rhys's wonderful excerpts this week, and it's made me a bit envious of their single viewpoint narratives. It's so thrilling, as a reader and as a writer, to get caught up in one person's voice. But in my books, as soon as I really get my steam up, it's time to switch to another character. I can't imagine, however, giving up Duncan or Gemma, or any of the other viewpoints that insinuate themselves into one of my stories, but the juggling can be a challenge. 

There's also the issue of having two equal detective protagonists who are no longer professional partners. In A BITTER FEAST, I solved this by having Gemma, Duncan, and my other two main characters, Melody and Doug, all work together on a busman's holiday sort of case where none of them had official standing. In GARDEN OF LAMENTATIONS Duncan and Gemma had two entirely separate cases. (My editor said it should have been two books!) In some of the novels, Gemma has the official case, and I have had to find a way for Duncan to help out. But in the book-in-progress, the official case is Duncan's, and I need Gemma to play an important part, too.

Duncan calls her in at the beginning of the investigation because she and Melody are working on a knife crime task force and the murder is a stabbing. And then, a little later, we find that the victim has a connection with the Kincaid/James family friends, Wesley and Betty Howard, so that involves Gemma in another aspect.

But, wait, there's more! In this little snippet, Duncan and Doug have interviewed the manager of a bar in London's Soho. They are driving back to Holborn Police Station through Chinatown and the theater district, so here's a photo to put you in the scene.

 

“Wanker,” said Doug as he fastened his seat belt. “What a poser. Who does he think he is, James Dean?” He frowned. “Or was it Paul Newman who wore the white t-shirts?”

Kincaid grinned. “Maybe you’re thinking of Brando. Since when did you become a classic film buff?”

“Bugger all else to do these days,” muttered Doug, signaling as he eased the Astra round the bend at the bottom of Archer Street and back into the traffic flow in Shaftesbury Avenue. “But, whatever, I still think Mr. Jonathan Gibbs is a tosser. I didn’t believe a word of that bollocks about his sister—or anything else he said, for that matter.”

Kincaid considered this. “You spent some time with Tully Gibbs. Would you say she had a penchant for drama?”

“No. Not at all. Her reactions seemed pretty straight ahead to me. Normal shock. Normal grief. And she didn’t try to make it all about her, either. Like some people.”

It seemed to Kincaid that Doug’s reaction to Jon Gibbs was a little extreme, but he trusted his sergeant’s instincts. “I don’t think Gibbs is telling us the whole truth, I agree. I don’t believe he didn’t know why Sasha wanted to talk to him about her little brother. He’d have denied knowing anything about it if he hadn’t guessed Tully had already told us.

“We should take a closer look at both siblings. Or maybe I should say, all the siblings, so as to include Tyler Johnson.” Kincaid thought for a moment. “And I’d like to know more about what goes on at Gibbs’ club on a busy Saturday night.”

“Well, we can’t check it out in person,” said Doug. “Not if Gibbs is working the floor and we want to be circumspect. What about Melody?”

“Probably not a good idea, on the off chance that Tully Gibbs frequents the club. Tully would recognize her.” Kincaid could ask Sidana to do it, but on his life he couldn’t imagine her fitting into the trendy club scene. Did she own any clothing other than white blouses and dark skirts? And what on earth did the woman do in her off hours?

Not that it was any of his concern. Or not by the book, at least, but in reality, he’d learned that a team functioned better when its leader knew the other members well enough to have some sense of their personal lives. Maybe he’d been remiss in not making more effort with Sidana.

His two detective constables were too new to be tasked with a job that probably wouldn’t be sanctioned by the brass—and he didn’t yet know how good either of them were at playing a role. Simon Gikas could do it, Kincaid thought--he had quite the man-about-town persona--but he didn’t want to pull Simon away from his computers.

To tell the truth, there was only one person he trusted to read a situation as accurately as he could himself, and to not get herself in trouble in the process—his wife. 

 Now I can't wait to see what Gemma thinks about having her Saturday night spoken for, without a thought for whatever she might have had planned! But a little undercover op--what fun!

What do you think, readers, about multiple viewpoints versus single viewpoint? Do you have a preference, or do you just dive in and enjoy? (That would be me!)

 

 

Jungle Reds' Discussion Questions for Book Groups

HALLIE EPHRON: Whenever I finish a reading a book, I find myself desperate to talk about it with someone else who’s read it. For those of us in a book group or book club, we’re fortunate to have a go-to source of like-minded readers to talk about the books we loved… or hated… or simply stirred us up and got us thinking.

From an author’s point of view, we’re thrilled when a book group decides to read one of our books. We’re often asked for discussion questions, so today we’re offering a list of questions for each of our latest books. And inviting you, please, at the end, to share your own experiences in a book group and what kind of questions you’ve found generate the most interesting discussions when your book picks a mystery novel. 

LUCY BURDETTE: In my ninth Key West food critic mystery, A DEADLY FEAST, food critic Hayley Snow is set to be married to her heartthrob detective Nathan Bransford. But she has a lot of worries because Nathan’s been married before and both sets of parents were married and then divorced. So she canvasses her friends and family about their experiences with marriage. I’m hoping this book might make for a good book club discussion!

1. What’s your theory about what makes for a good marriage?
2. Does it seem to you that Nathan and Hayley are a good match? Why or why not?
3. When you’re reading about a fictional wedding, how much do you like to hear about wedding plans and details?
4. What are your favorite examples of fictional weddings, either books or movies? Explain why you chose them.

And for some non-wedding questions:
5. Have you ever gone on a food tour? If so where? If not yet, what place would you love to eat your way around?
6. Martha Hubbard talks about chefs feeling possessive about the recipes they make and serve—they don’t want diners making substitutions. How do you feel about that?
7. How do you feel about Hayley’s relationship with her mother? And compare this to her relationship with Miss Gloria and Allison, her stepmother.
8. Hayley’s boss Palamina says she never understood why Hayley was living with a senior citizen, until she met Miss Gloria. How do you feel about this character? Does she accurately reflect seniors?

If you'd like to invite Lucy to speak to you group, contact her at RAISLEIB "at" GMAIL DOT COM.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Has everyone read THE MURDER LIST? If not, get some wine and go into the other room and finish the book! Everyone else...

1. How did you feel about the ending?
2. When you started the book, how did you feel about Rachel and Jack’s marriage? The dynamics of their relationship? What was the balance of power in that relationship?
3. How do you feel about lawyers and what they do? If you’re a lawyer, what parts of the book capture a legal reality for you? If you’re not a lawyer, which lawyer in the obok did you like the most? DId that change as the book progressed?
4. How do you think women’s issues--sisterhood, support, mentoring--change professional relationships? How did Martha use hat? How did Rachel use that? How did Clea use that?
5. We are never in the point of view of the reporter Clea, but we hear her described-very differently by the three characters who deal with her. How do Jack, Martha and Rachel think of the journalist--and what do you think about how different those descriptions of her are?
6. Have you ever been so madly in love with someone that you would do anything to “get” them? Which characters in the book are obsessed with someone?
7. We think about unreliable narrators--but aren’t we all unreliable? Because we’re describing the world the way WE see it? Or the way we want it? And lawyers, especially, have to be able to argue both sides of any story. How does that prism change how you understood the book?
8. Have you ever been on a jury? What did you think about what happened in the deliberation room? If you’re called to jury duty in the future--will this realistic portrayal change how you think about the jury system?
9. If you were a lawyer, would you want to be a prosecutor? Or a defense attorney? Why?
10. The title THE MURDER LIST has at least three meanings--maybe more. What did you think it meant when the book began--and what did you think at the end? 

To request Hank for an event or speaking engagement, please contact hankevents@reganevents.com. 

RHYS BOWEN: These discussion questions for my new book, Above the Bay Of Angels, that will be published on February 11. Maybe you can think about the questions when you read it. 

Above the Bay of Angels is a story of a young girl, cheated out of the life she expected but able to shine when she becomes a cook for Queen Victoria and experiences the delights of French cuisine when the queen goes to Nice. 

1. Do you think Bella made a wise choice when she acted on the letter she found?
2. One of the themes of this book is the British class system. Do you think it right that Bella remains a snob?
3. Food plays a big part in this book. What does Bella learn about food as the story progresses.
4. The journey to Nice opens up a whole new world to Bella. Why do you think she is able to appreciate it more than her fellow cooks?
5. Discuss Bella’s relationship with her sister
6. The story in Nice has its basis in real history. Did the plots and intrigue enhance the story for you?
7. In what ways is this a mystery rather than a simple historical novel?
8. Which character did you dislike most? (There were several really objectionable ones, weren’t there?)
9. What was your impression of Queen Victoria from this story? Did it agree with what you already knew about her?
10. Did you agree with the ending? Were you surprised? Did she make the right choice?

If you would like your bookclub to Skype with Rhys do contact her at authorrhysbowen@gmail.com and visit her website for updates.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: A Bitter Feast

1.Do you think the portrayal of Viv’s experience in the kitchen at O’Reilly’s was realistic? What special challenges do women chefs face in the kitchen?
2.Why do you think Viv cut off all contact with Fergus? How might things have turned out differently if she had not?
3.How do the events of the book change Viv’s relationship with her own kitchen staff?
4.Why did Melody withhold the truth about her family and their circumstances from Andy?
5.Do you feel that Melody’s relationship with Andy can be repaired? How might it be different?
6.What qualities does Kit have that are consequential to the resolution of the story and Grace’s safe return?
7.Do you feel that Melody’s relationship with her parents, and in particular, her mother, has changed by the novel’s end?
8.How does Duncan’s injury affect his handling of the case?
9.Why does Duncan feel driven to learn what happened to Nell Greene?
10. Are there any commonalities in the revelations experienced by the major characters? If so, what are they?

To arrange an author appearance, Deborah's publicist at Harper Collins: danielle.bartlett@harpercollins.com

JENN MCKINLAY:  PARIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA (July 2020)

Interestingly enough, I have to write reader’s questions for my July book PARIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA this week. It’s a new genre for me, single title romantic comedy, but I’m having a lot of fun with discussion possibilities. Here’s my starting place, we’ll see which of these make it into the back of the book!

1. What event causes Chelsea to reconsider the path her life is presently on?
2. Do you think revisiting her past will help Chelsea to move forward with her future?
3. What is Chelsea looking for? What does she hope to find in revisiting her post college gap year?
4. Which of the three loves of her postcollege gap your is your favorite? Why?
5. When does Chelsea start to see her work rival, Jason Knightley, in a different light?
6. What happened that kept Chelsea from moving forward with her life? Why?
7. How does grief play a role in both Chelsea and Jason’s lives?
8. How does Chelsea’s relationship with her family change during the course of the book?
9. What does Chelsea learn about revisiting her past? Why couldn’t she be the girl she once was again?
10. What does Chelsea learn about herself during her trip? How is she different at the end of the novel from who she was at the beginning?

To contact Jenn, reach out to publicist Brittanie Black, PRH Publicity: bblack@penguinrandomhouse.com 

HALLIE EPHRON: Careful What You WIsh For

1.There are three couples in the book (Emily and Frank, Ruth and “Murph,” and Quinn and Wally.) How is “stuff” a dynamic in each of their marriages?
2.How did Emily and Frank’s fertility problems affect their relationship? How has it affected Emily’s relationship with Becca?
3. What is Emily’s relationship with her mother? How are they alike; how are they different?
4. At the end of the novel, why do you think Emily goes with Frank to the storage unit?
5. Do you think Frank got what he deserved in the end?
6. What do you collect, and what does it say about you?
7. Have you known a hoarder? What skills do you think a professional organizer needs to help someone like that? 
8. Do you think Emily and Becca made any decisions that a more experienced professional might not have made?
9. What do you think the title CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR refers to?
10. The author has said that one of the inspirations for this book was the Patricia Highsmith novel, Strangers on a Train. Can you see the similarities and differences?

If you would like your bookclub to Skype with Hallie, please contact her at Hallie "at" HallieEphron.com; check her website for her events.

Now we'd love to hear about your experiences in a book discussion group. We'd love to hear all about it... 
What are the books that were particularly interesting or difficult to discuss? And what kind of questions you’ve found generate the most interesting discussions when your book picks a mystery novel. 

Book pairings: Jungle Red gift ideas

HALLIE EPHRON: One of the most fun events I did for my book launch was book talk paired with a wine, chocolate, and cheese tasting, hosted by Adventures by the Book in San Diego. They do such a great job pairing experiences with books--just for instance, coming up next fall they have a New England Foliage Adventures (Oct 12-20), a four-state journey featuring New England authors.

Their approach got me thinking about how pairing a book with a food, an experience, or another book makes a great gift.

So as we all look toward the Christmas shopping season, we Reds are here to help you with some creative gift giving, pairing our books with… 

I’d recommend pairing CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR with a copy of Marie Kondo’s THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP, and a bottle of Prosecco (just don't drink too much).

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I’d recommend pairing A BITTER FEAST with a bottle of Cotswold Dry Gin (or best substitute available,) a cheese board with artisan British cheeses, and a book on Cotswold Secret Gardens. A plane ticket would be nice, too, for those very special friends!

LUCY BURDETTE: If the person you’re gifting is going to make it to Key West this winter, a perfect gift would be A DEADLY FEAST, plus tickets to the Key West seafood and walking tour that’s featured in the book. Or you could meet the real chef Martha Hubbard at one of her tasting events: http://www.islecookkeywest.com/schedule-of-events.htm

If all else fails, a key lime pie goes with any of the books!

JENN McKINLAY: Well, for the romantics in your life, you could give a copy of THE CHRISTMAS KEEPER with an ugly Christmas sweater, it’s a thing in the book. Or for the mystery lover, a copy of WORD TO THE WISE with a nice charcuterie board or some roses, although they might send a mixed message, so be careful with that.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ooh, a copy of THE MURDER LIST feels like it might come with a bit of baggage. So I’d make it fun, and include a gorgeous indulgent notebook--ostensibly for keeping track of the books your recipient reads, or maybe journaling, but maybe for a list of something else….   And a beautiful pen, or a box of those wonderful Blackwing #2 pencils.

RHYS BOWEN: I’m not sure what I could pair with LOVE AND DEATH AMONG THE CHEETAHS, my most recent book. Certainly not a book on how to host a wife-swapping party! Or a bag of cocaine. Or even a pair of tickets to a safari. 

So I think I’ll stick with the safer THE VICTORY GARDEN, my stand-alone from earlier this year. It’s about a garden in Devonshire, herbs, healing, so I think I could pair it with a book on the uses of herbs, plus a jar of Devon clotted cream to have with scones and jam. And I’d throw in a copy of my THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS to make it festive, as that is all about celebrating Christmas in Devonshire.

HALLIE: So wishing everyone a happy Saturday-after-Thanksgiving and JUST THREE WEEKENDS BEFORFE CHRISTMAS!

Writing/Not Writing from London--Deborah Crombie

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We are batting for naught this week on the writing front--except for Hank, who we hope is turning out those last ten elusive pages! And I am so not adding to the page count on my front. Between the pre-pub promotion for A BITTER FEAST, book tour, Bouchercon, then leaving for three weeks in London, I've barely had time to catch my breath, much less think, for the last couple of months.

I AM researching now, however, tromping around London! Background, setting, atmosphere, characters, for Kincaid/James#19. My process is much like Rhys's. I start with an idea for a setting and a basic story. Then I need to spend time in that place, taking loads of notes and photos, and just see where things take me. Where does an incident happen? Where do the characters live? Who do they live with? Where do they work? How do you get from point A to point B? And of course I want to know what people are eating! Just drool over these pastries from Paul's, the French bakery! There is one right across the road from my tube station, so I am in big trouble!

I know that a good part of the book takes place in central London, in Bloomsbury, Holborn, and Soho, so I have spent hours and hours walking "creatively" i.e. "not lost," just soaking things up.

I spent a good few hours in the British Museum, although I have no idea where or how or even if it might work into the story. But it is so amazing. You could spend weeks there, all day every day, and not see it all. 

I discovered the London Le Cordon Bleu! I think I was admiring the knives here. Hmm.

And next to it, the London Review of Books Shop, which is total book store heaven, and it has a wonderful cafe.

I walked through Russell Square at dusk, potentially the scene of a crime.

I have flashes of the book now. Scenes, locations, scraps of dialogue. The characters are taking on form, like holograms filling in. 

The challenge will be going home next week, right at the beginning of the holidays, and diving in without losing my focus. I promise next time on What We're Writing I will have some actual words to share.

REDs and readers, do you have a process for starting books or big projects?  Please share!

Deborah Crombie's A Bitter Feast is here!

LUCY BURDETTE: Today our dear Deborah Crombie's book A BITTER FEAST is on sale everywhere! We couldn't be more excited! Rather than wax on about how much we loved this book and this author, I'll get right to questions for Deb:

I know well how hard writing is and especially writing a complicated police procedural with long running characters. But I kept thinking about how much fun you must have had with the background of the story – inventing the food and the gardens and the dogs and describing Melody’s parents’ country home. And at the lunch, the table settings, the local produce, the gin cocktails…

Do you mind starting with the lunch menu? That special luncheon was so divine! I really hoped that the murder wouldn’t ruin the meal before the guests got a chance to enjoy it. Roasted lamb with white beans and fennel, local smoked trout pate, pickled veggies with seeded flat bread—you had me absolutely drooling. Even the salad was stunning with pears, blue cheese and a drizzle of caramel. 

 But now inquiring minds need to know, did you actually cook this menu? And how did you choose it?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I wish I had cooked all of those things! I’m hungry just reading your list.

I’ve made leg of lamb, although not in a smoker, and fennel and white beans, although not together with the lamb. And I’ve experimented quite a bit with the fermented veggies. (As for the gin cocktails, I think I can claim to be an expert!)

The main inspiration for Viv’s menu was a dinner given by a local McKinney chef, Robert Lyford.  It was my first trip to the Round Top Antiques week down in Brenham, Texas, and Robert was the featured chef for an outdoor dinner at a place called Rancho Pillow.  The guests were seated at one long table, set much like the tables in the book. We were served pickled vegetables and spicy pimento cheese with crispbread, then Robert’s main course was “pork and beans” served in camping tins.  And the deserts were in little jars, as are Viv’s in the book. All the food was amazing. So that part of the menu is totally down to Rob, except that I switched pork to lamb because the Cotswolds is sheep country. The pears and blue cheese were based on a recipe in our local foodie magazine, Edible. Yum! The smoked trout I just threw in because I love smoked trout spread, and if fit with the local foods.

LUCY: You had wonderful descriptions of your character Viv deciding she’d be a chef and then what it was like in the world of the kitchen, the sexism, the hard work, the pressure of seeking a Michelin star—even the tattoos the chefs got to celebrate. Here’s a snippet from p. 270: “It was so tenuous and indefinable, the synergy of the kitchen. When everything worked, it was an almost liquid thing—one station flowed smoothly into another and the communication on the line was seamless.” (Of course, everything is not working!)

Tell us about the research you did to get this right?

DEB: I had lots of help and advice, not just from Rob Lyford, but from my chef friend in Phoenix, Sean Currid, and chef Nik Chappell at the Slaughters Manor House in Lower Slaughter. Both Sean and Nik gave me restaurant kitchen tours and answered lots of questions. And then I read and read and read. Chefs’ bios and memoirs, books about professional cooking and about the restaurant world. I also ate a lot! Research was my excuse to go to a lot of restaurants in London and the Cotswolds that I would normally have considered out of my budget. Now I have to figure out a way to justify those meals on the next trip.

LUCY: I’ve been thinking a lot about your chef characters and remembered an interview I did on the blog with psychologist Scott Haas about his book, THE BACK OF THE HOUSE. I asked him if he ever felt like a psychologist to the chefs, and he said:

“There is a profound superficiality to the way some chefs regard the depth of their emotional lives--an avoidance, a calcification, part of why they cook instead of developing intimacy.  Cooking is much easier than working on relationships.  Certainly the chef told me extremely personal things, but this is not an introspective profession. On the contrary.”

Did you find this to be true as you were talking with chefs? I can imagine this description fitting at least one of your characters…

DEB: The chefs I spoke to seemed to make a great effort to lead balanced lives, and they guard their days off ferociously. But, yes, I think you can safely say that the chefs in my book have a hard time maintaining a work/life balance. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have much of a story!

LUCY: You make a wonderful comparison between the work of a gardener and a chef—how in both professions, people work so hard to achieve something that is fleeting, such as a wonderful meal or a perfectly weeded garden. And that brings us to gardens. We can picture the roses and the hedges and can imagine the landscape architect at work. Will you tell us about your interest in this and how your gardens compare?

DEB: This book let me indulge both my passions. I am an enthusiastic if not particularly good gardener (the same could probably be said of my cooking…) and I have an obsession with English roses. I’ve also been fascinated for as long as I can remember with English gardens, and with Arts and Crafts gardens in particular.  A wonderful book on the restoration of the Gertrude Jekyll garden at a Surrey house called Upton Grey inspired the gardens at Beck House.  I even drew diagrams of all the beds and plantings.  Although my own garden is tiny in scale compared to something like Beck House, I do use a lot of native perennials in a natural way—a very Arts and Crafts design template.

LUCY: You were spinning so many plates with your plots and subplots and it surely must’ve been difficult to decide which characters to bring forward and which new ones to introduce. With a series that has run to 18 books, can you tell us more about that process?

DEB: I’m usually thinking a book ahead about what characters will lead the next story. In A Bitter Feast, I knew I wanted all four of my main characters, Doug and Melody as well as Duncan and Gemma, to be working the same case in the same place, and the setting followed from that. But because there is such a big cast of continuing characters in the series, my biggest problem in planning a book is deciding who to leave out, rather than who to put in.  And sometimes the characters don’t cooperate.

LUCY: You’ve mentioned that you go to England most years to do research for your books. What did you do and see while planning A BITTER FEAST? (Now we’re all dying to visit the Cotswolds.) Do you know what you’re looking for before you go? And where are we headed next?

DEB: I visited the Cotswolds on my very first trip to England with my parents, in the late seventies, and I had never been back, although I had for a long time thought the area would make a great setting for a novel. I made three trips for this book. The first was sort of a fact-finding mission, trying to find the perfect village (or villages) for the story. On that visit, I decided on the Slaughters, which I’d seen all those years ago with my folks. I’m sure we even stayed at Lords of the Manor in Upper Slaughter, when it had just opened as a country house hotel.

On the second and third trips I stayed in both Lower and Upper Slaughter, and I do think I could work for the Slaughters tourist bureau! The landscape and the villages in this part of England are just breathtakingly beautiful.  I’m quite downcast now at not having an excuse to go back—but maybe I will think of one. Beck House and the Lamb are, after all, still there.

The next book, however, is set in London, in Bloomsbury and Soho, and I’ll be off for three weeks writing and researching in London right after Bouchercon! And as usual, I can’t wait!

LUCY: Readers, do you know that all 7 of the Jungle Reds will be at Bouchercon in Dallas in a couple of weeks? Two of our Reds are Guests of Honor--Debs and Hank! Don't miss the annual Jungle Red game show on Thursday the 31st at 2:30. 

And I have the honor of interviewing Debs on Thursday morning at 9:30. What questions would you like me to ask???

And most important, you can buy A BITTER FEAST wherever books are sold...