Rhys and Lucy Celebrate Pub Days!

RHYS BOWEN: Hooray, hooray, it's publication day! Champagne all around! Raising a glass to our readers!

It’s always a time for celebration when one of the Reds has a new book out. And today it’s a double celebration because we have two new books—I am excited to launch my new stand-alone THE PARIS ASSIGNMENT, into the world, and Lucy is equally excited for the pub day of her latest in the Hayley Snow Key West series, called  The Clue in the Crumbs. And so we decided to have a little chat about them.  (and this is a photo of the last book launch we did together. What fun that was!)

So congrats, Lucy! And hooray that Hayley is back with us. It’s interesting that we share a pub date, you with a light and fun cozy and me with probably the darkest book I’ve ever written. I think we’re showing the full scope of Jungle Reds! Is this lucky number 13 in the series? Did you ever think it would go on this long? Are you finding it more fun to write now that you know the characters and the setting so well? Or is it harder to come up with new and fresh ideas?  I know these are a lot of questions at once. 

LUCY BURDETTE: Huge congrats to you too, Rhys! It’s an honor to share a launch date with you. I couldn’t even guess what number published book this is for you! I love writing a long series, because the further I get into it, the better I know the characters. Honestly, it feels like the long-term psychotherapy I used to do in my other career as a clinical psychologist—uncovering layers and layers. I don’t ever get bored with my setting because Key West is such a many-layered town, with many visitors and a rich history. The longer I live there, the more I understand about the place, and the more I can show readers.

 But now here’s a question for you, since THE PARIS ASSIGNMENT is a stand-alone. You have so much experience with both long-running series and single titles. Isn’t it harder to think up a whole new set of characters and an entirely new setting? How do you feel about leaving Madeline and her son Oliver behind when you’ve invested so much in them (and put them through multiple wringers!)?

RHYS: I think it's book 55! And It’s definitely more work to write a stand-alone because I have to begin by researching a whole different world and getting to know a new set of characters. As you know with your series, when you begin a new book it’s like going back to a family reunion. You know the characters. You know how they will react to certain incidents. The challenge is to make each new story fresh and interesting. When I write a stand-alone I do enjoy getting to interact with a new set of characters, putting them through the wringer and then walking away. Although I have to tell you I get emails all the time asking when there is going to be a sequel to any of my stand-alones.

So, about your new book: I loved the Scone Sisters in the last book and I’m so glad you brought them back. Did you have that in mind when you introduced them last year? Did they come to you before you went to Scotland? When you were writing A SCONE OF CONTENTION did you know you wanted to use them again?

LUCY: Thanks for that Rhys, I love those characters too! I’m not too good at planning ahead.  I knew I wanted to include the town of Peebles, Scotland after we visited it in 2019 during the Solstice celebration. When Hayley Snow went to the home of Violet and Bettina after the shocking loss of Violet’s son, she had no idea what she would find there, and neither did I! But the sisters really popped as I wrote about them, and they got along like a house afire with Miss Gloria. Miss Gloria is a very popular character in this series, and I loved imagining highlighting the three older women in another book. Since they had won a contest with their cinnamon scone back in Scotland, a baking show seemed like the logical solution.

But since we’ve mentioned setting a couple of times, I have to ask you about the research that goes into a book like THE PARIS ASSIGNMENT. It’s a very complicated plot that swings through England and France and finally Australia, and covers some horrific events that happened over the course of World War II and beyond. How do you research a huge project like this one and decide what to cover and what to leave out? I can remember in one of the blogs you wrote for JRW that you wrote out stories in two separate timelines and actually spread the pages out in a hallway so you figure out how to weave them together. How did you manage the structure of this big sweeping story?

RHYS:  I didn’t have to spread the pages on the hall floor for this one as it’s all a sequential story going from 1930 to 1947. But I did have to do lots of research. I started when we rented a house on the Seine River near Fontainebleau and I saw the chateau and the forest and thought what a great setting it would make. Covid intervened and I had to wait until last year to go back and choose my houses in the Marais, take a river trip to see what the locks feel like and check out the museum of the resistance. In the meantime, I read the autobiographies of several real women who were spies/couriers in Nazi occupied France. I read the training manual for exactly what their training entailed (I would have quit the first day) and realized how incredibly brave they were. They knew the survival rate was twenty five percent and yet they signed on.

And part of the book takes place in Australia. I didn’t have to research that much as I lived there, was married there, my parents moved there and I used to spend a good portion of each year there until my mom passed away. I love the feel and openness of the Australian countryside so it was lovely to revisit it in the book.

So are you having a launch party, Lucy? Any events our friends should know about?

LUCY: : Yes! Big double book launch tomorrow night for A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS and THE INGREDIENTS OF HAPPINESS! This will be at RJ Julia Bookseller on Main St. in Madison CT. Call 203-245-3959 to reserve a seat. (Cake! Wine! Books!) How about you?

RHYS: I did a virtual event at the Poisoned Pen last night. There are signed books if you’d like one. And a live event coming up at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA on August 19. I’ve also done/am doing numerous interviews/podcasts/chats etc. I post them on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/rhysbowenauthor

So thank you to all of you who are our loyal readers. We appreciate you so much! If you like this latest one do please post a review on Goodreads, Amazon, or wherever else grabs you.  It really helps get the word out.