Debs on the Cover That Wasn't

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I thought I might have a least a first draft of the cover for Kincaid/James #19 to show you today, but, alas, I fear that particular cover was not meant to be. Covers are so difficult! A cover has to convey what sort of book it is, it has to draw the reader in, and you want it to identify the author as well as the series if you are writing a series.

To compound the challenge, this book is set mostly in Bloomsbury and Soho, parts of London that have turned out to be remarkably difficult to photograph in a way that says LONDON! MYSTERY! READ THIS!

My London photographer friend did a little Bloomsbury photo shoot for me in early December--good timing for the setting of the book, but not so much for photos. London is pretty brown and drab at the beginning of December. But there was one shot of the Number 14 (Russell Square) bus that my editor and I both really liked, so we sent it to the art department. This was a close shot of the front half of the bus, with a beautiful carved pillar in the background.

What came back from the art director last week was a sequence of covers with London buses on bridges, complete with time-lapse light trails. He took the bus idea and ran with it. The 14 bus was in there, too, and while I still liked it, my agent HATED it. NO BUSES. NO TRANSPORTATION ON BOOK COVER. All caps.

So we are back to the drawing board, this time with the idea of lighted pub windows, seen from the outside. I have no idea if this will work! The good news is that they managed to get the title on the cover and it looked fabulous! (And, no, I'm not sharing it quite yet.)

In the meantime, I've been consoling myself by looking through my Portobello Market photos. Here's a snippet from the book, in which Kit goes to work at Otto's cafe in Elgin Crescent, one of the streets that bisects Portobello Road right in the center of the market. Otto's is entirely fictional, but I know exactly where it is. See the hat vendor in this photo from 2016? Otto's is just to the right. (I was sitting in the Duke of Wellington pub. Oh, the short hair! With no gray! Not to mention being IN a pub!)

You can see it better here, disguised by the graffiti and the scaffolding. Just imagine the blue awning...

Kit walked down Arundel Gardens with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie. After yesterday’s drizzle, the air was sharp with the sort of biting nip you only got on crisp, clear autumn days. If Gemma had been home she’d have told him to wear a coat, but he didn’t want to look a prat. No one at school wore a coat unless it was the apocalypse.

He was looking forward to working the lunch shift at Otto’s. The cafe was always busy on Portobello Market day, and Otto and Wes would need the extra help. Otto was paying him, too, although Kit suspected Otto knew he’d happily work for free. He loved the buzz and efficiency of a busy kitchen, and he felt comfortable there, more so than he ever did at school. People who knew what his parents did for a living tended to avoid him. He got bullied, too, for not having every social media app, but once when he’d tried to explain that his parents had seen first-hand what sort of trouble people could get into by sharing personal stuff, that git Trevor had fallen over himself laughing. Now everyone thought he was some sort of goody two-shoes, and God forbid they found out his little brother was dancing ballet.

That nerve-wracking thought took him into Elgin Crescent and he was glad to see the cheerful blue awning of the cafe front. Sandwiched between the charity shop and a bar that had changed hands half a dozen times since Kit had moved to Notting Hill, Otto’s café was a neighborhood institution. Just beyond it, the hat stall set up on the pavement provided a blaze of color against the crowd thronging Portobello Road. The fine weather meant it would be a good day for the market, and the punters should be edging from morning coffees into early lunches.

Pushing open the cafe door, he met a blast of warmth and the smell of fresh coffee. With one glance, he checked the small dining room’s occupied tables. One woman, plastic shopping bags piled at her feet, was scrolling through her mobile, an empty coffee cup and a crumb-littered plate on the tabletop. At another two-top, a couple were perusing menus. The man set his down and looked round impatiently.

Kit frowned. The first table should have been cleared, and someone should have taken the couple’s orders. Where was everyone? Neither Otto nor Wes had appeared at the door to the kitchen. Usually, Otto’s daughters helped out on busy Saturdays, but there was no sign of the girls, either.

Kit crossed the room, nodding at the impatient man and murmuring, “Someone will be right with you,” as he passed. Pushing open the swinging door at the back of the room, he clattered down the stairs to the kitchen.

He stopped dead in the entryway, staring. Wesley Howard sat on the single kitchen stool, the palms of his hands pressed to his face. Otto stood before him, flapping his apron like a rotund chicken, his bald head gleaming with sweat under the harsh overhead lighting. The smell of hot fryer fat singed Kit’s nostrils.

“What’s happened?” he asked, his heart thumping into overdrive. “Wes, are you okay?”

Wes’s shoulders gave a convulsive heave. When he swiped his palms across his cheeks, Kit saw that his dark eyes were brimming with tears. Although a good few years older, Wesley was the first real friend Kit had made when he’d moved to London to live with his dad and Gemma. He had never seen Wes cry.

“Ah, Kit, you are here.” Otto turned to him with a look of relief. “I’m afraid Wesley has had some bad news.”

REDS and readers, what do you think about buses and book covers?  A double-decker definitely says LONDON, but not necessarily mystery. How about old buildings? Pub windows? What would draw you in?

 

 

 

What We're Writing--Deborah Crombie Missing London

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  I am really missing London these days. Not that I had a definite visit planned for this year, but somehow knowing that I can't even contemplate such a journey (or that ten-hour plane flight each way) until there is a vaccine for Covid-19, or until there is some change from what is now the foreseeable future, has made the longing to be there painfully sharp.

I look at the photos my London photographer friend has sent me of empty streets, of Buckingham Palace with only a few scattered cyclists, of Piccadilly Circus without a living soul, and my heart contracts. It is a ghost city.

So I've been consoling myself with looking at some of my own favorite London photos.

Here's a Portobello Market vegetable stall. The market is always so full of life and activity--I can't imagine it deserted.

The Sun in Spendour pub at the top (south) end of Portobello Road, which used to be my "local" when I stayed in Notting Hill, and I still stop in every time I visit the market.

A flower stall on Portobello market.

And here I am back in 2017, having afternoon tea at St. Ermin's Hotel in Victoria (literally a stone's throw from Scotland Yard!)

Gosh, my hair looks short compared to what I'm seeing in the mirror now! (And, yes, it was tea AND champagne...)

I'm keeping up with the London news. I read the BBC updates every day, and Eater London, because you can judge the pulse of the city from what's going on in the restaurant world. (And that is not much these days...)

My favorite hotel is closed--as are all London hotels--which makes me sad and I wonder how all the lovely people on the staff are doing. But I had a little boost from an email newsletter today. One of my favorite London restaurant groups (which includes the restaurants Church Road, Elystan Street, and Kitchen W8) is providing meals for the NHS workers at the Royal Brompton Hospital!

Of course, I do have the advantage of being able to go to London in my imagination. Although, like most of us, I'm struggling to reconcile writing a pre-pandemic book with a post-pandemic world.
I'm also struggling with the "to prologue, or not to prologue" issue, so here is a little snippet from Kincaid/James #19, which might be a prologue...or might not.


     She stood looking down at her daughter, sleeping, damp hair tangled, her duvet kicked half off. The child had never slept easily. But those nights of walking and rocking, walking and rocking, were too distant now, a memory she struggled to grasp, just as she struggled to recall the warm weight of her baby in her arms. Now, the half-light from the open bedroom door made hieroglyphics of the unicorns dancing across her rumpled pajamas, as if the beasts were dancing in scattered moonlight.
     How could she bear to leave her little girl, perhaps for months? But she must, she knew she must. There were others who needed her more. And she needed to be herself, needed room to breathe, room to think, room to make decisions without the constant weight of his displeasure.
     She felt his presence even before she heard his footstep in the hall and his shadow blocked the light behind her. He grasped her shoulders. “You won’t go.”
    She didn’t turn, tried to stop herself flinching. “I have to. You know I have to. I can help—”
    “That’s your God complex,” he said softly. “Your place is here. A mother. A wife.”
    “Yes, but—” Her protest died away as his fingers bit into the soft flesh of her upper arms.
     His voice was a whisper now, a breath in her ear. “If you do this, my love, you will regret it. I can promise you that.”

So REDS and readers, what things do you want more at the moment, just because you know you can't have them? Including a proper afternoon tea...

Debs' UK Highlights

DEBORAH CROMBIE: As many of you know, I just spent almost a month in the UK, from mid-October to to mid-November. I was working, but it was good, productive (Yay!) work, and every day was full of big and small delights. I wanted to share a few of those.

1) Pret a Manger. I promise not every item on this list will be about food! But to start, I so looked forward to eating at Pret a Manger. This is a salad/sandwich/soup chain, takeaway, with some very basic eat-in tables. They are ubiquitous in the UK. There is a shop literally next door to the Earl's Court Tube Station, so that was my kitchen-away-from-kitchen. I had lunch many days (eat-in) and dinner a few (takeaway.) Their food is made fresh every day, healthy, and reasonably priced, and they are friendly and cheerful. Here's one of my favorites, a salad with falafel, beetroot (beets), edamame, avocado, and broccoli rabe, or "tender-stem broccoli" as they say in the UK. Yum. I wish I could have this every day at home.

 

2) Watching the hor4s. That's Fuller's (the brewery chain sponsor) Heads of the River 4s. Still Greek? It's the annual rowing race on the Thames between Chiswick (Chis-ick) and Putney, for quad sculls, coxless fours, and coxed fours. It's rowed the opposite direction from the Boat Race (Oxford vs. Cambridge) in the spring, but on the same course. My friend Kerry, who works at Leander Club, gave me the heads up on this and I made my way to Putney on that Saturday morning to watch the racing. It was a glorious day, cool but not uncomfortably cold, and bright. The river was gorgeous. I watched from Putney Reach, in front of the boat clubs, and from Putney Bridge, cheering every Leander boat. (They won most of their races, due to me, I'm sure...) Of all the things I've learned researching my books, rowing is one that I continue to love.

3) Portobello Market. Always. I have such a strong connection with the market, both personal and fictional. I never miss a Saturday when I'm in London. The first Saturday was bitterly cold, the second Saturday was 70 degrees and absolutely perfect, and the third Saturday the sky opened up and poured buckets. Such is the market. I particularly love walking back up Portobello Road as the market is closing and the vendors are breaking down the stalls.

It's such a magical time of day. And here's a shot of The Sun in Splendour, the pub at the very top of Portobello Road, on that perfect Saturday. I managed to get a bus going past in the photo!

4) The Cotswolds! Where to start? This trip I managed to actually tour The Cotswold Distillery (last time I only stopped in for a visit.) I don't know why I'm so fascinated by distilling, but this was geek heaven, an hour and a half very detailed, very informative tour. Don't you love these huge and gorgeous copper stills? (Those are for the gin. The whisky stills are not nearly as pretty.)

5) Driving. Much to my surprise, because I've always found driving in the UK fraught with tension. But I've found a car hire company that will bring the car to me, so that I don't have to manage in a big town, and the last few trips I've absolutely loved it. Here's my little Peugeot peeking from the car park at the second of my hotels.

6) The views in the Cotswolds. That is the bad thing about driving rather than being driven, trying to take in the stunning scenery while paying attention to the road and to the navigation. To take a photo, you have to find a layby (a place in the road where a vehicle can pull over.) Here's one shot from a morning of absolutely breathtaking views. I think this is in Warwickshire, near Long Compton.

 

But no photo can begin to convey the beauty of this countryside.

7) The autumn colors. I was visiting the Cotswolds later this year than I have before, and I loved the combination of bare trees with brilliant foliage. This is the River Eye, near Upper Slaughter, one of my favorite shots of the trip.

8) Back in London, a new favorite pub, The Scarsdale Arms in Earl's Court, just behind the Kensington Police Station. Here I am with my friend Kerry, and some unknown but very fancy lady.

9) Saving one of the very best for last. (I promised I would keep food to a minimum.) Dinner at the Slaughters Manor House in Lower Slaughter, Gloucestershire. Because of a scheduling issue, my original dinner reservation was canceled and the dining room was not open to guests. But Chef Nic Chappell had a table set up just for me in the Manor House Snug and he and his staff cooked me a fabulous dinner. Here's my table--don't you love the Sex Pistols poster in this very grand house?

How elegant is that?? I felt like the Queen. And the food was just exquisite. It was truly an evening to treasure and I can't thank Chef Nic and the staff at the Manor House enough.

10) Okay, one more thing. Just walking. I walked every day in London, often for hours after I finished work, and as much as I could in between driving stints in the Cotswolds. 

I don't think there is anything I love more than just wandering in London, discovering new places as well as soaking up familiar neighborhoods. This was the last photo I took, on my last afternoon in London, walking at dusk (4:30!) from Kensington High Street down Earl's Court Road, with the crescent moon just visible over Earl's Court Station.

I was so sad to be leaving. So until next time!

Portobello Market

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We've had a very wordy week here on JRW, so I thought it was time for a change. 

As many of you probably know, when I'm in London, I love to spend Saturdays at Portobello Market in Notting Hill. In my books, this is Gemma and Duncan's home patch, so I need to keep up to date!

Yesterday was a gorgeous day--clear, crisp, and very cold. The market was buzzing.  Here's a little visual tour, starting from the Notting Hill Gate end of the road and walking down.  This is the famous sign where Portobello Road meets Chepstow Villas.

Here's one of my favorite colorful houses at the top end of the road.

Here's the much photographed Alice's Antiques.

Looking down the hill.

Mr. Christian's deli, where I like to get an energy boost with a coffee and a croisant.

 

Some of the multitude of market stalls.

And food, of course.

The Notting Hill Bookshop, made famous in the movie Notting Hill (although it's actually around the corner from where it's shown in the film.)

My friend Steve Ullathorne's photo stall, always my ultimate Saturday destination, just under the Westway towards the north end of the road.

 

My (very late) lunch, from one of the new food stalls beyond the Westway.

And last, walking back up, the landmark Electric Cinema at dusk (sunset is just after four o'clock.)

By this time I'd been walking about five hours and was absolutely frozen. I had to go in the pub partway back up the road and warm up before walking to the top and taking the bus back to my hotel. 

Photos don't begin to convey the hustle and bustle and color and energy of the market. I've left out so much! Stalls with books and hats and jewelry and furs and cameras, the arcades, flower stalls and fruit and veg stalls, cafes and pubs and buskers and every kind of food you can imagine. 

But I hope you enjoyed the snippets, and will be tempted to visit yourselves. What would tempt you?

(And yes, I did buy a few things, but will only admit to tea...)

Debs's London To-Do List

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm off to London next Thursday for a three and a half week stay, and I've been so busy the last few weeks (month...) that I've hardly had time to think about what I'm going to do once I get there (other than work...) So I thought I would ramp up my pre-trip anticipation by making a little things-to-look-forward-to list.

And then I realized that not only do most of my much anticipated to-dos include food or drink, or food AND drink, they are also probably a bit weird and very eccentrically personal.

But here goes:

1) I arrive early on Friday morning. For years I flew into Gatwick, so the very first thing on my list was to hit the airport bookshops. If you've never flown into London Gatwick, it's a sort of cross between an airport and a shopping mall, so once you've cleared customs and immigration, you could spend the day shopping before you ever left the airport. I could never wait to see what was on the bookstore shelves that I hadn't seen in the US.  Now, alas, I fly into Heathrow Terminal 3, which is not nearly as much fun. I have to content myself with arriving at Paddington Station via the Heathrow Express, and there I make my first pilgrimage, a visit to the Paddington Bear stall. Now I know I'm really in London.

2) Then, a taxi to my rented flat, one of two this trip. The first flat is in South Kensington, so fingers crossed for a pretty day, and a drive through Hyde Park. Bliss. Arrive at flat (a new one for me), unpack, find the nearest supermarket, buy essentials, which always include a box of Twining's Lady Gray Tea (the English version tastes different than the one you get in the US, I don't know why) and a copy of the Radio Times. The Radio Times is an iconic British thing for me. It's a bit like the American TV Guide, but GOOD. Great photos, fun articles, and of course, the week's TV and radio schedule. I know we get British TV is the US, but we don't get the funky things, the real-life cop shows, the documentaries and gardening specials and game shows, all irresistible stuff. I am so nerdy that I highlight things I want to watch. Then a nap, and dinner somewhere comforting and familiar.

3) Saturday morning, the London MUST DO--Portobello Market. (Again, fingers crossed for a pretty day, although I have done Portobello in sleet and snow.) I am a browser, not a shopper. I make my way down the hill, checking out my favorite antique stalls and shops, stopping for coffee and a croissant at Mr. Christian's deli in Elgin Crescent, admiring the fruit and veg and flower stalls, the giant simmering vats of paella, taking in the aroma of crepes and sizzling sausages, listening to the music from the buskers and the CD stalls. Then, the lunch destination, a tiny place at the very bottom of the market, Falafel King. (The photo above is me at Falafel King a couple of years ago, on a gorgeous sunny day.)

It is, I have no doubt, the best falafel in London. You can't sit inside, but there are a few tables outside where you can enjoy your falafel and fresh lemonade and watch the swirl of the crowds. I can spend the rest of the afternoon working my way back up the hill, and on a very good day my favorite buskers will be playing outside the Duke of Wellington pub, and I can listen while sipping a well-earned G&T.

And from there, oh, London is my oyster. 

I want to watch the scullers from Putney Bridge, and have Sunday lunch at The Jolly Gardeners pub in Putney. 

Covent Garden is a must, with a visit to the London Transport Museum, and tea and a scone at the Covent Garden Kitchen.

Wednesday Evensong at St. Martin in the Fields.

A look in the National Portrait Gallery.

A glass of champagne at Searcy's in St. Pancras Station, just for the atmosphere. As you sip, you can

watch the Eurostar trains depart for Paris or Brussels, and imagine adventures.

A proper afternoon tea at Sketch, just off Regent Street. Very quirky, fun, and delicious.

Lately I've been following a mobile tea van on Facebook. It's called Good and Proper Tea, and it moves around London. I'm determined to track it down.

A visit to Darwin's house in Bloomsbury.

And Daunt's Bookshop in Holland Park.

And Selfridge's, just for fun.

There will be dinners with friends, and hopefully a jazz club or two, maybe even the 12 Bar in Denmark Street.

There will be research, too, although all of the above count as research as well!

But by now my feet are tired, and evenings in with a book and something good on the telly sound just as appealing.

So REDS and readers, if you have been to London, what tops your fantasy to-do list?

And if you haven't, where would YOU start?

Jenn McKinlay--Cloche and Dagger

DEBORAH CROMBIE: You will guess, from the quote on the

cover of Cloche and Dagger, that I really loved Jenn McKinlay's new book. London? A hat shop? In Portobello Road, no less? A heroine named Scarlett? And a murder???? What's NOT to love!

So I asked Jenn to tell us a bit about how she came to write this very English story, and what is the deal with the hats?

(And remember I said to pay close attention to the hat in the photo from the film The Women in Monday's post? See anything familiar in the photos here today?  What goes around, comes around, it seems...)  Here's Jenn!

JENN McKINLAY: 

What was your worst fashion faux pas?

 I remember mine.  In my defense, it was the eighties.  At the tender (read dopey) age of seventeen, I decided it would be fabulous to shave the sides of my head and bleach my brown hair a brassy shade of blonde only found on clown wigs or troll dolls.  Obviously, that wasn’t enough, so I decided to wear a Pea Coat and combat boots bought at the Army Navy Surplus shop because high school guys love asking out a girl who looks like a dude, right?  Yeah, this is one of many reasons why I am so grateful that the Internet was still in its blessedly innocent infancy during my teen years.  The only evidence of my bad choices is a sleeve of negatives in a musty box in my mother’s basement.  Praise be to the stone age!

Now what if your fashion faux pas was photographed, went viral and inspired a traditional mystery series?  Yes, Princess Beatrice, I’m talking to you.
 
Like many of the fabulous authors here at Jungle Red, readers frequently ask me where I get my ideas. They come from a variety of places but for Cloche and Dagger, the first of the London hat shop mysteries, the idea came to fruition in a matter of hours.  On April 29th, 2011, I roused myself (like 22.8 million other American viewers) to watch the royal wedding.  I loved it all – the pomp -- the circumstance – the crazy hats!  And then, there she was, Princess Beatrice with that beige thing on her head.  I simply could not look away.

It became a worm burrowing into my skull.  I couldn’t stop thinking about Philip Treacy, the milliner who designed the hat, which then led my brain to wonder about the British custom of wearing hats.  Milliner is just not an occupation you see much in the States, although I’ve been told since researching this series that the popularity of hats is on the rise.  As I watched the Internet light up over Princess Beatrice’s chapeau, I wondered how she felt and hoped she was blithely unaware of the criticism.  I don’t like to watch people being bullied, I mean, it’s not like she designed the squid replica herself.  Then I wondered if she was miffed at Philip Treacy, and then BAM!  I knew I had to write a mystery series set in a hat shop in London, so I did.


Writing Cloche and Dagger was one of the best experiences of my writing life.  It challenged me in so many ways with a foreign setting, a business I knew nothing about, and it came out in first person in the voice of my American heroine Scarlett Parker.  For this adventure alone, I will be forever grateful to Princess Beatrice and Philip Treacy and that wonderfully inspiring hat.  As a thank you, because Princess Beatrice is too often associated with fashion faux pas, I’m including a picture of her where I think she is quite lovely (not sure who the dude is, but he’s cute – go, girl)!

Now, confess, what was your worst fashion faux pas?  And what would you have done if it went viral (besides cry)?

And now I must take a moment to give a tip of the brim to two of the Reds who were wonderful enough to slog through Cloche and Dagger while I was still whipping it into shape – Deborah Crombie and Rhys Bowen!  You both represent what is so terrific about the writing community – the camaraderie and support.  Smooches to you both!

Jenn McKinlay is the New York Times bestselling author of the Library Lover’s mysteries and the Cupcake Bakery mysteries.  She also writes under the names Lucy Lawrence and Josie Belle.  She lives in Scottsdale, AZ in a house overrun with kids, pets, and her husband’s guitars. 

DEBS: So, readers, confess your worst fashion faux pas and you could win a copy of Cloche and Dagger! (I would love this book for its utterly charming cover even if the story weren't so much fun!)

(And Jenn's right--Bea's BF is quite dishy...)

LONDON CALLING

DEBORAH CROMBIE: As you read this, I will be back in lovely London, staying in my favorite little hideaway hotel in South Kensington, trying to recover from jet lag before going on to events in Henley on Wednesday. In the midst of my usual frantic packing and last minute prep (does everyone else do that, or is it just me?) I was trying to organize my thoughts about what I needed to do the following week, when I will be back in London and doing some much-needed research for the book-in-progress. And I wondered what I might bring back with me that will keep me feeling connected to this particular book over the next few months.

Because it occurred to me that over the years, and the books, I have begun to collect what I think of as "writing momentos." Not that I haven't collected enough British things over the years! (We're not even counting the London Transport posters, or the teapots, or my photographer friend Steve Ullathorne's London prints. Or the generic things like handmade journals from Portobello Market , jewelry, hats, gloves, scarves . . .)

But rather things that are specific to a particular book. Touchstones. (On Friday, Louise Penny has some interesting things to say about how she stays connected to her books.)

There is the painted enamel canal-ware mug that I bought at the Canal Museum in London when I was writing Water Like a Stone. It now holds pencils and pens on my desk.

A scrap of framed chant manuscript, from A Finer End. A (rather cat-hairy) purple tartan blanket from the Scottish book, Now May You Weep. AND, although the bottles of scotch bought while writing the book have long since disappeared (mostly drunk by other people) I still keep a bottle of good scotch to remind me of those wonderful visits to the Highland distilleries.

From No Mark Upon Her and my time spent in Henley, I have a Leander pink hippo mug, and a Leander wooly hat, which I actually wore out sculling on the Thames. (But that's another story.)

So what do I want to bring back this time, to keep me centered in the current book?

A vintage Fender Stratocaster. Preferably Fiesta Red.

Somehow, I doubt that is going to happen. Sigh.

What about you, Jungle Reds and dear readers? Do you need things that physically tie you to your books?