Nancy Cole Silverman--The Navigator's Daughter

DEBORAH CROMBIE: What an inspiring week we're having! I've been looking forward to Nancy Cole Silverman's THE NAVIGATOR'S DAUGHTER, which debuts next Tuesday, June 7th.

It's just the sort of book to get stuck into for a good summer read, and I love her answer to the perennial, "Where do you get your ideas?" I've heard some authors get a little impatient with this question but it is always one of my favorite things to talk about, and I'm equally fascinated by other authors' answers. What could be more interesting than the magic of the creative process?

Inspiration!  From Whence Does It Come?

BY Nancy Cole Silverman

As writers, we’re always being asked where we come up with our ideas or the inspiration for a story?  For me, that initial spark can be anything; a sight, a sound, or even a smell—like a sweet perfume or the briny scent of salt air. For an instant, I get a picture in my mind’s eye, a flash of an idea that like an earworm, won’t leave me alone until I’ve put something down on paper.  

Sometimes, I describe that story-flash like the cover of a jigsaw puzzle. It comes to me briefly like a colorful picture on a box then when I sit down to write, it crumbles in front of me, as though someone has turned the box upside down and all the pieces have fallen in a mix onto my desk.  It’s then I know my job is to comb through the tabs and put the picture back together again.

That’s how the story for THE NAVIGATOR’S DAUGHTER, captured me.  I was sorting through old family photos shortly after my father passed, and I came across of picture of dad with his crew taken in Italy towards the end of the war.  Dad was a navigator/bombardier, and they were shot down over Hungary on their 13th mission.   

I had heard the story since I was a young girl, but looking at the photo, I couldn’t help but wonder about what had happened to dad and members of his crew while they were MIA? He had never told me.

Then, years ago, after the Iron Curtain fell, my dad got a letter from a young man in Hungary who said he had found my dad’s plane. Dad asked me to correspond with the man and eventually, he even asked if I might like to come to visit and see the country. Holding that letter in my hand and looking at the photo of my dad and his crew, was the spark that started me thinking...what if?

What if, is the phrase that sends me and writers like me running to the keyboard.  What about you? What is that sparks your creative thought process? 

DEBS: I LOVE this story! Nancy, you'll have to tell us if you went to Hungary. And which one of those handsome young men is your dad? I also love your image of the shattering puzzle. I've had that experience, where you suddenly get the whole book in one piece, then once you start picking apart the story it falls apart. Then, of course, you start the painstaking process of sticking it all back together.

Here's more about THE NAVIGATOR'S DAUGHTER:

Getting caught in the middle of an international art theft ring wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal Kat Lawson made with her dying father. But when her father receives a mysterious letter informing the former WW2 navigator/bombardier that his downed B-24 has been found and asking him to come to Hungary, Kat suspects this is all part of some senior rip-off scam. Her father insists she goes, not only to photograph the final resting place of his plane but also to find the mother and son who risked their lives to rescue him and hid him in a cave beneath an old Roman fortress. Kat’s trip uncovers not only the secrets of the cave where her father hid and of those who rescued him but a secret that will forever change the direction of her life—that is—if she can get home safely.

You can pre-order it here!

After twenty-five years in NewsTalk radio, Nancy Cole Silverman retired to write fiction. Her Carol Childs Mysteries features a single mom whose day job as a reporter at an LA radio station often leads to long nights solving crimes. Her Misty Dawn series is centered on An aging Hollywood Psychic to the Stars, who supplements her day-to-day activities as a consultant to LAPD. Silverman’s newest work, The Navigator’s Daughter, is scheduled for release June 2022. Silverman lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a thoroughly pampered standard poodle.

READERS, are you interested in where writers get their ideas?

Are psychics for real? Nancy Cole Silverman's cozy paranormal with a twist of ghost

HALLIE EPHRON: I'm a disbeliever when it comes to psychics. I've read every biography I can get my hands on about Houdini, the great magician who was also a great debunker, despite his friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle who came to believe in Spiritualism. I'm a huge fan of James Randi, a modern magician who's spent his life debunking frauds and investigating paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. 

Having said that, I've had a few experiences that I have a hard time explaining. Nancy Cole Silverman had one, too... one that happened while she was writing THE HOUSE ON HALLOWED GROUND, her first mystery featuring psychic Misty Dawn.

NANCY COLE SILVERMAN: I’m one of those writers who believe that when it comes to fiction, the story picks the writer. At least that was the way it was with me when I began writing the Carol Childs Mysteries. Which didn’t come as much of a surprise, since I had spent many of my working years inside a newsroom at different talk radio stations in Los Angeles.But, when I sat down to write what I thought was going to be a sequel to the series, I was surprised when Misty Dawn showed up on the page. Misty had been a recurring character in the Carol Childs series, but never one I intended to spin off into a series of her own. 

After all, she was a psychic, and what did I really know about psychics?But here she was, a full-blown character, reminding me a lot of Kathy Bates, and with a story that matriculated on to pages fast as my fingers could type the scene.

Okay, I have to stop here to say that as much as I enjoyed what I thought was nothing more than a writing exercise— a flirtation with my keyboard on a day when I didn’t know what else to do—the experience caused me to pause.

Are psychics real?
I was skeptical, but like any good journalist, I took my note pad out and scribbled off a bunch of questions, along with a list of possible psychics in the area I might interview. (Let me add, that in California that’s not hard. There’s a psychic on nearly every street corner.) I treated this like I might any interview. I took it seriously, and crafted my questions like I might for anyone with an unusual occupation. This was strictly research. There were no right or wrong answers, just information. 

Upon meeting with several psychics, I stressed I wasn’t interested in a psychic reading for myself. What I wanted was to better understand not only what they did, but who it was that visited with them; how often and—from the psychic’s prospective—their experiences with their readings. For instance, if a caller had asked the psychic to make contact with a spirit, did the psychic have any residual visitations from said spirit, or was it all just an open and shut case? 

I can report that no two of my interviews were the same. Some psychics liked tarot cards, others crystal balls, and some claimed to read tea leaves or jewelry. I didn’t get the idea one might be better than other, but I did come away feeling that most of these items were props, a way to get the person they wanted to read to open up. 

It made me think a good psychic is really more of an intuitive, and only as good as the person being read allows them to be. Which was something else psychics shared with me; they could only read those people that wanted to be read.

I then doubled down on my efforts and started to look for stories about psychics working with the police and the FBI. Had they ever used psychics, and, if so, what was their experience? Would law enforcement voluntarily call a psychic in to investigate or was it more the other way around, where a psychic might call them with a lead?

The response was a resounding, “No!” No surprise there, despite the stories on the web claiming otherwise.

Facts aside, people are fascinated by the idea of someone being able to read the future. I pitched the idea to my publisher, Kendel Flaum with Henery Press, and she insisted I pursue it. So, two years later, here we are with a new series, based on a psychic who, I have to admit, has opened my eyes to seeing the world beyond what I see right in front of me. Kendel calls the Misty Dawn Mysteries, “a cozy paranormal with a twist of ghost.”

For the sheer fun of it, I’ll share that I did have some rather unnerving experiences while writing several scenes for The House on Hallowed Ground. The first happened one afternoon when I was editing a particularly sensitive scene where one of the characters was saying goodbye. As I went to delete an extraneous word of dialog, my delete key took control of my computer and erased the entire scene! This happened not once, not twice, but three times! I’ve since rationalized that I had accessed my word program inappropriately and somehow short-circuited the delete key, causing it to go berserk. I’m still not a hundred percent certain.

How about you? Have you had an experience psychic or an unusual experience when starting a new series that caused you to pause?

HALLIE: Me? Definitely not. But with my biases, I probably wouldn't admit it. Anyone else have an unusual experience that was inspirational?

ABOUT The House on Hallowed Ground by Nancy Cole Silverman
FROM DUST TO DAWN When Misty Dawn, a former Hollywood Psychic to the Stars, moves into an old craftsman house she encounters the former owner, the recently deceased Hollywood set designer, Wilson Thorne. Wilson is unaware of his circumstances and when Misty explains the particulars of his limbo state—how he might help himself if he helps her—he’s is not at all happy.

That is until Zoey Chamberlain, a young actress, comes to Misty’s door for help. Zoey has recently purchased The Pink Mansion, a historic Hollywood Hills home, and believes it’s haunted. But when Misty arrives to search the house, it’s not a ghost she finds, but a dead body. The police are quick to suspect Zoey of murdering her best friend. Zoey maintains her innocence and fears her friend’s death may have been a result of the ghost...and a long-time family curse. Together Misty and Wilson must work to untangle the secrets of The Pink Mansion or submit to the powers of the family curse.