THINGS OUR CHARACTERS TEACH US

**BREAKING NEWS!! HOORAY for Susan Elia MacNeal who hit the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list at #7 with MRS. ROOSEVELT'S CONFIDANTE! CONGRATULATIONS SUSAN! 

Now, on to our blog for today...



LUCY BURDETTE: I know I shouldn’t read reviews, but I can’t help it. One thing that has stood out scanning these is the descriptor most often used for Hayley Snow (after dizzy in the debut book): loyal. Sure, loyal to the point of foolhardiness, but loyal all the same. She goes to extended lengths to support her pals and her family members and nose around looking for alternate answers if someone she loves is accused of something bad. It makes sense for the protagonist in a cozy mystery to have this quality, as she needs a reason to investigate a crime that would otherwise be none of her business. But I do love it when a reader says she wishes she had a friend like Hayley, someone who would step up and vouch for a friend in trouble. I aspire to be that kind of friend.

Reds, what has one of your characters taught you? 

HALLIE EPHRON: Two characters in THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN showed me how two women, one 92 years old and another 30-something, can develop a real friendship despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that they're not related. I've read too many books in which old woman are reduced to caricature or helpless victim and Mina is definitely neither. I hope I turn out to be as feisty and tenacious as she, and I hope, even in my final years, I continue to have friends decades younger than me. 


LUCY BURDETTE: That’s so funny Hallie, because Hayley has an older woman (Miss Gloria) with whom she’s become friends and roommates. Readers love her. And they love the relationship between the two women.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: That's a wonderful sentiment, Hallie. I've noticed that the older people at my church who seem the most vital are the ones who are involved with and have friends of all ages. If it doesn't keep you young, it at least keeps you up to date with slang!

I think Clare Fergusson has given me a negative example. One of her most enduring traits is her impulsivity. She leaps into political positions. people's problems, volunteer jobs and crime scenes without stopping to ask herself, "Is this a good idea?" It's a terrific trait for an amateur sleuth - after all, she has to be drawn into investigations somehow - but in real life, it can lead to moments such as arriving in a romantic beach town and discovering there are no rooms to be had. And you forgot sun screen. And your bathing suit.

I used to be very impulsive myself, but as the years go by (faster for me than for Clare) I've learned the joys of pre-planning, scheduling, and buying tickets well ahead of time. Not to mention making reservations. Part of it is parenthood - it will be interesting to see, going forward, if Clare begins to stop and, as Russ says, "Measure twice and cut once," now they have a child.

RHYS BOWEN: I think both my main characters share my strong sense of justice although they are braver than me, more impulsive than me. Molly Murphy is most often described as feisty. Lady Georgie as delightful. So I wouldn't mind being both those things, Especially Molly, taking on assignments in an era when women were supposed to be helpless and stay home, when she was hampered by skirts and petticoats and yet kept  up with men in a man's world. She should remind me that nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it. And Georgie? That it doesn't hurt to have royal connections. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: True, Rhys! But commoner Jane Ryland is--more confident than I am. She talks back to power, stands her ground.  Isn't afraid to do the right thing--often to her employment peril! I got an email the other day from a worried reader, asking me to make sure Jane stopped quitting, or getting fired over her ethics. She was worried Jane's unemployment benefits would run out!

When I was Jane's age, I put off having children and family because I was focused on my career. Though I have ZERO regrets, Jane, now in the same situation,  is showing me, again, what a very tough call that can be.

  Jane's often described as determined and honorable, and I get that a lot, too. But we're different in that Jane doesn't feel she has to please everyone all the time. I sometimes ask myself--Do I really need to say yes again? Or can I stand my ground and say no? I think-what would Jane do? And then I burst out laughing.


SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Wow, this is a tough question. I feel I've learned a lot from Winston Churchill — not that he's perfect, or even close to it — but his sense of honor, duty, justice, and doing the right thing are inspiring. (We won't discuss Churchill and India here, ahem.) 

I also love Churchill's sense of humor. And his perseverance. His love of language. His tenacity. And his willingness to speak out when it's not popular and it seems as though no one is listening. I'm continuing to learn from him (and also his mistakes) as I write the Maggie Hope series.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: So interesting, Lucy. What I'm reading in the others' responses, and what I'm thinking about, is that we seem

to write characters that we aspire to be. When I was writing A FINER END, an older woman named Erika Rosenthal popped up, one of those convenient secondaries who come along to move things forward for our primary characters. But Erika had her own story to tell, and later her own book, WHERE MEMORIES LIE. She survived leaving her country and losing her family during WWII, she lost her husband and then the love of her life, and yet she made a good life for herself in London, her adopted home. I love that she's developed a deep friendship with much younger Gemma, and especially that she continues to encourage and inspire Duncan's son Kit, who has also suffered great loss. I'd like to thing I'd be half as brave and compassionate as Erika.

Red readers, can you think of a character who's taught you something important or even become a role model? 

Sometimes the author is the last to know...

HALLIE EPHRON: I try not to Google myself. Really I do. I've learned the hard way that there's plenty of stuff "out there" that I do not need to step in. But between Night Night, Sleep Tight coming out in March and a story "Photoplay" with the same characters about to come out, I succumbed to the Google's siren song. 

I discovered, among other things, that someone is selling an audio version of my last book, There Was an Old Woman.

Audio?? Having a book made into an audiobook is old hat for many authors, but for me it's been an unfulfilled dream. 

At first I assumed it wasn't real. You'd order your audiobook and get a paperback, or maybe a CD packet with empty slots. Or it would be pirated.

But upon inspection, it turned out that the publisher was Harper Audio, and the CDs were on sale at Amazon, B&N, as well as the publisher's web site. The narrator Nan McNamara is a real, super-talented actress and voiceover artist. She also voiced one of my all-time favorites, the classic The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

I emailed my editor with the subject line:
AUDIOBOOK? ME: GOBSMACKED!

She wrote back, very apologetic. I love my editor. She immediately sent copies and I had a listen. There is something weird and wonderful about hearing your words read by aloud someone else. And something delicious about a genuinely auspicious surprise.

But the best was yet to come. At around the time I found out I had an audiobook, There Was an Old Woman hit the New York Times best seller list. It happened the week before Christmas when, as we all know, no one in publishing goes to the office or looks at email. And like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, I never heard a rumble. 

It wasn't until a week into January that I found out. My phone rang late in the afternoon. Caller ID said it was my editor. She never calls, so I knew right away it was either really bad news or really good news. There is no news better than: "Your book was on the New York Times best seller list," and "There's time to get it on the cover of your new book!"

So a month ago, I didn't know I'd ever be able to say this, but here goes!

For one randomly drawn commenter, today I'm giving away an audiobook of the New York Times best seller There Was an Old Woman!

So I hope you all will forgive me for succumbing today to blatant self promotion, but can I just add: Whoo whoo!

Hallie: Savoring soup dumplings and lost jelly donuts

HALLIE EPHRON: Happy Holidays, everyone!! This last week of the 2014, we're regifting! Each reprising a favorite blog from the days of yore. Lest auld should be forgot.

Here's mine... on food, of course.

HALLIE: Sharing my favorite foods is one of the guilty pleasures of writing. In THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN, Evie Ferrante has my passion for Chinese soup dumplings. Evie's boyfriend (aka Mr. Wrong) is all about steak. Which, by the way, I also love, but given a choice between soup dumplings and steak? No contest.

When I eat at the aptly named Gourmet Chinese Dumpling House in Boston's Chinatown, I order rack of those succulent babies just for me. Anyone who encroaches on my share gets stabbed with a chopstick.

Often I find myself writing about fondly remembered foods -- the ones I can no longer get. In THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN, it's jelly donuts. When Evie returns to the little the grocery store near the house in the Bronx where she grew up, she discovers that the kind of jelly donuts she remembers are still there...along with a man who could easily learn to love soup dumplings.

Sadly, my favorite jelly donuts have gone the way of the dodo. They came from a Van de Kamps next to the Thriftimart in Beverly Hills -- back when Van de Kamps was just a bakery and Beverly Hills was just an upscale neighborhood. 

In my memory, those jelly donuts were light, puffy, powdered sugar-coated cakes. Literally jam-packed, front to back, every bite risked spurting some of the filling out the other end. The filling was in a league of its own, thick and tangy and intensely raspberry -- not that pallid, sugary-sweet, gelatinous stuff that finds its way into jelly donuts these days. And there was none of that palate-coating greasy finish that today's donuts deliver.

Though I love to cook, I'd never attempt to make my own jelly donuts. I'm not good with yeast or deep fat. And forget soup dumplings.

Fortunately, I've discovered a great recipe for another gone-but-not-forgotten treat -- chewy, caramel-colored hazelnut biscotti that were once but are sadly no longer available at my local Italian bakery. This recipe is a close approximation.

Hazelnut Biscotti

3 c. whole hazelnuts (or almonds) (skin on)
1 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 c. flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp cinnamon
3 T soft unsalted butter
2 beaten eggs
2 T vanilla
1 beaten egg mixed with 1T water for egg wash
Preheat oven 350
1. Roast nuts
-In a single layer on a cookie tray in the oven - check after about 8 minutes but keep roasting until lightly browned and (if you are using hazelnuts) the skins are coming loose.
- Dump them onto a dish towel and roll them around to rub off most of the skins (if using almonds, leave the skins on).
2. Prepare dough
- Cream the butter with the white sugar in large mixing bowl.
- Add brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking powder and blend.
- Add beaten eggs and vanilla and BEAT with mixer on low speed until dough holds together.
- This makes a VERY STICKY DOUGH.  Fold in the nuts.
3. Make 2 logs of the dough
- Put dough on floured surface. Cut in half. Roll each piece into a log.
- Place on parchment-lined cookie sheet and flatten slightly.
- Brush each log lightly with egg wash.
4. Bake 30 minutes OR until ***firm*** to the touch. (Go by touch, not time)
5. Remove from oven. Cut diagonally into biscotti. Turn each piece sideways (cut side up) and return to 300 degree oven to dry out and crisp--about five minutes.
 
My question: What are your "lost" food favorites, and have you been able to recreate them?

THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN is the story of a young woman, Evie Ferrante, who reluctantly returns the house where she grew up on the waterfront in the Bronx in order to deal with the chaos left behind by her gravely ill, alcoholic mother. She renews a friendship with Mina Yetner, the 91-year-old woman who lives next door. Mina helps Evie figure out the meaning of her mother's last message: Don't let him in until I'm gone. And Evie helps Mina figure out whether she's losing her mind.

An old woman to remember...

HALLIE EPHRON: Today I'm celebrating the release of the paperback edition of THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN. My favorite reviewer's comment was from Maureen Corrigan in the Washington Post who called it the perfect "thriller lite" for readers who "love Gotham and abhor gore."

And can I just say that I'm thrilled that they kept the cover the same as the hardback. Fist pump!

We've been talking about "crones" a bit lately on Jungle Red, and I just want to say that the old woman in my book is anything but.

"Crone" is a scary word, a caricature loaded with negativity. Writing 91-year-old Mina Yetner, the old woman of the novel, I was determined not to make her into that kind of caricature or a joke. I've been fortunate to have several old women in my life who are anti-crone role models. One of them was Freda Touger, my husband's mother, who lived to be 92.

Freda was one of those fortunate people who, though she grew forgetful, did not become feeble-minded. Though she slowed down, she could walk my feet off at the mall. Though she grew less patient, she never became shrill. In fact, she seemed very much the same person a week before she died as she had when I met her twenty-some years earlier.

In short, she aged but she was never turned into a crone -- just an old woman.
To write Mina, I drew a lot on Freda. Like Freda, when Mina was young she worked on one of the top floors of in the Empire State Building. Like Freda, she remembers looking out the 79th floor windows and feeling the building swaying. 

To write in Mina's voice, tried remember that Freda told me she felt like she was exactly the same person at the age of 90 that she'd been at 12. So though she's baffled by computers and cell phones, her voice isn't geriatric or enfeebled. Mina's biggest fear is the same as Freda's -- that she'll become a burden. Worse, that she'll lose her marbles and not realize she's lost them.

Every morning, Freda would open the paper to the obituaries and look for people who were older than she. So that's how I opened the book. Making a list of dead people is something I do.

Mina Yetner sat in her living room, inspecting the death notices in the Daily News. She got through two full columns before she found someone older than herself. Mina blew on her tea, took a sip, and settled into her comfortable wing chair. In the next column, nestled among dearly departed strangers, she found Angela Quintanilla, a neighbor who lived a few blocks away.  

Angela had apparently died two days ago at just seventy-three. After a “courageous battle.” Probably lung cancer. When Mina had last run into Angela in the church parking lot, she'd been puffing away on a cigarette, so bone thin and jittery that it was a miracle she hadn’t shaken right out of her own skin.

Mina leaned forward and pulled from the drawer in her coffee table a pen and the spiral notebook that she'd bought years ago up the street at Sparkles Variety. A week after her Henry died, she'd started recording the names of the people she knew who'd taken their leave, beginning with her grandmother, who was the first dead person she'd known. Now four pages of the notebook were filled. Most of the names conjured a memory. A face. Sometimes a voice. Sometimes nothing -- those especially upset her. Forgetting and being forgotten terrified Mina almost more than death.

 So here's my question -- please, share the older women in your life who are neither comic caricatures nor crones. 

THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN Launch Day!!!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We're very excited here on Jungle Red Writers, because today is publication day for Hallie Ephron's latest  mystery, THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN. Yesterday's first newspaper review in the Lansing Journal was a rave: "It's a dark, captivating and deliciously creepy tale that’s liable to keep you reading all night long.” 

Once upon a time…

…there was an old woman who lived in the Bronx.

Ninety-one-year-old Mina Yetner lives in the Bronx neighborhood of Higgs Point where small shotgun houses perch on waterfront with a view marsh grass, birds, and in the distance the Manhattan sky line.

Mina doesn’t like to get into her neighbor’s business, but when Sandra Ferrante, a troubled woman with a drinking problem, is pulled from her home and taken by ambulance to the local hospital, Mina tries to find Sandra’s daughter to convey her mother’s message:

“Don’t let him in until I’m gone.”

I know, right? You're pressing the 'buy' link or putting on your coat to head for the bookstore as we speak. While you're off getting your copy of There Was an Old Woman, Hallie and I will have a little chat...

JULIA: Every book, I've discovered, has a kernel - an image, a news story, an event that spurs the writer's imagination. What was the kernel for THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN?

HALLIE EPHRON: Ah, the kernel... The idea came to me on a cold January morning a few years ago when firefighters pulled my next-door neighbor out of her house. She'd fallen and had been lying on her kitchen floor, unable to call for help. Her minister alerted the police when she didn't show up for Sunday services.

Firefighters found a house full of cats and piles of garbage and debris so dense it was barely possible to get to the kitchen to rescue her.

My office window is barely ten feet from her living room window, and a year or so before, I'd brought over some mail mis-delivered to us and the interior looked, well, normal. And I thought she only had two cats.

And so, being a mystery writer, I began to What if. What if my neighbor didn't create that mess she was living in? How could her living conditions have deteriorated around her? Who might have orchestrated it. And the all-important: Why?     

JULIA: A feisty 91-year-old isn't the sort of heroine one reads every day. How did you put yourself into Mina's head?

HALLIE: Mina. She's the person I imagine I'll become when I've outgrown the need to apologize for having so many opinions. I'm already pretty forgetful, so that part I didn't have to make up.

JULIA: Forgetfulness... I think everyone at JRW can empathize with that! The book is rooted in the location, a small working-class community on a marsh within reach of Manhattan. Is Higgs Point based on a real community?

HALLIE: I set it in the Bronx where the Bronx River meets the Long Island Sound, at the edge of a marsh that Robert Moses didn't fill.

I call it Higgs Point -- Thomas Higgs is historic figure who owned that (once) beachfront property at the turn of the century. But Evie's street, the little store, and everything else about the neighborhood is made up. 

JULIA: The unavoidable question: outline? Or organic?

HALLIE: I tried to outline but it kept getting away from me.

JULIA: Part of the story is anchored in the 1945 crash of a plane into the Empire State building (I looked it up in wikipedia when you gave me the manuscript to read and was surprised to find it was all true!) What led you to include this episode in the book?

HALLIE: That crash links Mina and Evie, the other protagonist.

Evie is a curator at a New York Historical society. She's mounting an exhibit about historic New York fires that includes that incident. Mina turns out to be the last survivor of that fire. 

JULIA: THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN has a pretty compelling mystery, but it's also very much a story about mothers and daughters and sisters. Do you see yourself as having written a mystery with a family tale embedded? Or a novel with a mystery attached?

HALLIE: Can I have it both ways?

JULIA: Absolutely!

HALLIE: I'm so glad you see the generations of women. Mina and Evie connect across a massive generational gap in part because they are not related to each other. Evie's relationships with her mother and sister are much more fraught.

Questions? Comments? Cheers? One lucky commenter will win a copy of There Was an Old Woman!

Writing Epiphanies

HALLIE EPHRON: As I bear down on the pub date for my new novel, I'm feeling philosophical. 

Remembering back to 2001 when my first book was about to launch and how much I was flying by the seat of my pants. Twelve years later, eleven books... I often still feel just as clueless.

But here are some of the things I've learned.

I’ve learned that... 

• My first instinct isn’t always my best idea. 
• I hate to write, I love having written.
• Readers don’t have to be spoon fed; write the badda-bing but let the reader discover the badda-boom.
• There’s no one way to get the book written.
• No one (except other writers) wants to hear writers complain.
• Suspense and surprise can be mutually exclusive; sometimes you have to pick.
• There are two kinds of days: the "everything’s great" day and "it’s all a piece of sh-t" day, and neither one is accurate
• Conflict makes dialogue more interesting, but a character who’s constantly arguing gets old fast.
• Complexity can grow out of clashing cliches 
• You can triangulate from your own experience to find emotion in a situation you've never experienced.

And finally:

• The book won't write itself.
  
     What are your epiphanies from writing and reading?

Gettin' Older... Movin' Faster??

HALLIE EPHRON: In my new book, THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN, one of the two main characters is a 91-year-old woman. When I tell people this, they ask how can you write a character who is so old?

She's based loosely on my mother-in-law, Freda Touger. Freda died when she was 91, a few days after taking one of her routine subway rides from Brooklyn to Manhattan and walking from Lincoln Center to the Donnell Library where there were free events for seniors. She missed the friends who used to go with her and who had mostly faded from her life.

Did she feel old? Sure she had aches and pains and had less patience for foolishness, but she said she felt basically like the same person she was when she was 8, or 28, or 58. What had changed, she said, was that time seemed to pass much more quickly.

I know just what she meant by feeling like I'm the same person (that's me at 8), and that surprise of looking in the mirror and finding that I'm not.

So here's my question. Do you feel you're changing or are you, too, the same person you were when you were eight?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: First off, bless Freda for still taking the subway and wanting to go out at her age. We all should be so active and engaged.

Two answers ( I always hate it when my husband does this, so either I've picked it up from him or there really are at least two answers to every question.) In many way I'm still the same person I was at sixteen. Scary, since most sixteen year olds aren't known for their common sense. Wisdom, good judgment, etc. I will still talk to strangers, dance around the house and start singing in elevators when properly motivated.

I'm probably most like me at thirty. Wise, dignified. Aren't I?

LUCY BURDETTE: Where's the second answer Ro, did I miss it?

Time definitely flies by at this age, that much is certain. But in many ways, I too feel like the person I was at thirty. (Let's not even talk about those teenage years--such agony!)

You know what's changed the most? My time schedule. I chose my classes in college according to how late they allowed me to sleep in--because I was up until one or two in the morning. (Until I reached organic chemistry, where 8 am was the only option.) Now the only reason I'd be up at 2 am would be a trip to bathroom:).

ROSEMARY: Ah yes, the second answer. No. Every day and every way I'm learning more and hopefully turning into a better person.

RHYS BOWEN: I got an email from one of my fans saying"I just saw your photo and until then I thought you were 21 like Lady Georgie." I was flattered that I'd created a twenty one year old so convincingly, but when I thought about it, I still do feel that I'm twenty one.

I have to remind myself not to jump over that chain across the track. But I still swing on swings, slide down the slide and generally behave as if I'm still five. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder who put my grandmother's photo there. But time has speeded up. It was Christmas, and now it's Easter and the year is rushing toward next year. And I don't know how to slow it down....

DEBORAH CROMBIE: One of the many reasons I so loved Hallie's new book, THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN, was her portrayal of Mina, the title character. Mina is ninety-one, but she doesn't feel old. 

Well, neither do I, although I have a bit to go before I reach ninety-one. Since I was a child I've wondered if there was a certain point when you began to feel "old." In some ways, I think I feel younger than I did in my thirties. Those were the "mum" years, but once your children are grown there's a sense of liberation. I still feel a tremendous sense of enthusiasm about learning new things, and doing new things.

But there is also that sense of time speeding up, of knowing there are going to be limits to your experience. That's bittersweet.

P.S., Lucy, my body clock hasn't changed. Maybe I have being an "early bird" to look forward to!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Why do we have the sensation that time speeds by as you grow older? Is it because once you're settled into your adult life, the year-to-year touchstones are the same? I mean, my family has had basically the same Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving every year for the past decade. We do many of the same things each summer, year after year.

Or is it because there are so many more memories to access? When you're twenty, you have maybe fifteen springs you can recall. When you're sixty... Perhaps whenn we say, "It's spring again? So soon?" it's because we can so readily envision last spring, and the spring before, and the spring before.

Or maybe, you know, time really DOES speed up. We need a physicist to look into this!



So, Hallie's question: I've changed for the better as I've grown older (my knees excepted.) I feel much more confident, much more comfortable with stating my mind and setting my own needs front and center. That sounds kind of selfish, but all of you know that when you're a young woman, being unequivocally opinionated and putting yourself first is almost unthinkable!

I look forward to becoming a "I-can't-believe-she-just-said-that" old broad. At the same time, in my head? I'm somewhere in my thirties. The weather warms up and I get the urge to strap on the shoes and go running, and I have to remind myself, no, I can't do that anymore.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Time clearly speeds up. Summer used to be forever. A kid could be--"bored." When was the last time you were "bored"? I can't even imagine.

In college, we had forever. (And that t-shirt says "Sigma Chi. THAT was a long time ago.)

I'm in the second half of my life, my husband too. I honestly can't think about it. There used to be "all the time in the world." Now--that feels short. So I dont think about it. Much.

How I'm different? I'm careful with people. I think--five years from now, a week from now--will that matter? If not.. then, so what.

I got hit with the physical part when I decided to take a ballet class several years ago. After all, it's like riding a bike, right? (Another thing I cannot do.) Anyway, ballet. My body simply would not do it. I could envision it, I could imagine it, but I could not do it. Game over.

The good news--I'm a little more confident. A little. But time is FLYING by.
 HALLIE: So how about the rest of you? Do you feel as if time is ganging up on you or flying past? 

Spring Housekeeping

 No, you don't need mops and brooms...

Jungle Red readers, it's a new month and the start of a very exciting spring reading season. We want to keep you in the loop and make sure you know what's coming up. Here's the dope:
Coming February 5, Rhys Bowen's e-story The Face in the Mirror
 

Also the first Molly Murphy book, MURPHY'S LAW, reissued as a trade paperback.

 

 

On February 19: THE SOUND OF BROKEN GLASS, by Deborah Crombie

 

On March 5, THE FAMILY WAY by Rhys Bowen 

Also the trade paperback edition of HUSH NOW, DON'T YOU CRY
 







On April 2, THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN by Hallie Ephron

Join Hallie's mailing list
 









On May 7, TOPPED CHEF by Lucy Burdette

 








And coming this summer:

On July 2, THE OTHER WOMAN in paperback! by Hank Phillippi Ryan 

On August 6, HEIRS AND GRACES, A Royal Spyness mystery, by Rhys Bowen

In September, THE WRONG GIRL by Hank Phillippi Ryan 


And we know since you're here, that you like us. But do you really like us? Please click on our Facebook fan pages so you don't miss a trick..

Rhys Bowen  
Deborah Crombie 
Hallie Ephron
Lucy Burdette 
Hank Phillippi Ryan 
Julia Spencer-Fleming 
Rosemary Harris 

And if you want us to "like" you back, leave your links in the comment section. And come back tomorrow for some unusual key lime pie....

True Confessions: Our 2012 Resolutions Revisited

HALLIE EPHRON: We all made resolutions for 2012, and the wonderful thing about a blog archive is that I can go back to this day, a year ago, and see what we promised ourselves. So how'd we do? I had three resolutions:
Finish the damned book.
Lose weight.
Chew more slowly.

I'm two for three... if you count two pounds as "losing weight" (I do!) In April, that book I was afraid I'd never finish comes out. Look for THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN in April.  It's a doozy. And how nice to look back and remember how lost I felt about that book, just like I'm feeling lost now with the next one.

Here you go, ladies, fess up! Did you(I cherry-picked or we'd be here all year...) --

RHYS, did you...
Have adventures.
Be patient with John's "little failings which are too numerous to mention here.
Take up a new sport.

RHYS BOWEN: I guess I can count falling and fracturing my pelvis as an adventure--not one I would have chosen, but certainly one that made me incredibly grateful for all the things I take for granted--being able to walk, drive myself, dance, play with grandkids. John's little failings... uh, I try.

Did I really say take up a new sport? What was I thinking? I guess my new sport had to be learning to use a walker! But I hiked 5 miles yesterday and maybe more today so all is well.

RO, did you...
Pay more attention to the library  in Tanzania.
Spend less time online.

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I did! And...maybe I didn't.We went back to Tanzania in February and we've committed to funding for another year so the library is still very  much in operation. We always need books though, so that's an ongoing challenge.

In the last six months I spent less time online but that had less to do with a conscious decision than just not having enough time. Oooh, Hallie, very sneaky of you to dig these up!

JAN, did you...
Exercise LESS.
Be more productive as a writer.

JAN BROGAN: Actually, the technical resolution - in my head if not in the blog - was to play less tennis. SO YES, I DID play less tennis. The fact that I tore my ulnar nerve was EXTREMELY helpful in that regard. In fact, I even wonder if I kept pushing my elbow into injury for just that reason. As of last July, I haven't played ANY tennis. 

So overall, I have exercised less, even though I have started running again (only a couple of times a week) and I've been way more productive as a journalist. A little more productive as a fiction writer.  The new year's resolution this year is to finish my first draft of my historical novel.

JULIA, did you...
Swim at least three times a week.
Keep better in touch.
Finish the next book.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I can't believe it's been a whole year and I still haven't finished the book! Clearly, for 2013, I need to come up with some concrete ways to a) stop procrastinating, b) better manage my writing time vs. my motherhood/volunteer/other professional obligations c) be accountable for my word production. Any suggestions are welcome.

I've been a tiny bit better at keeping in touch with my family, worse at staying connected to my friends, but a lot better at communicating what's going on with my editor and agent - so overall, I'll put this in the plus column.

Except for this summer (when we do lots of things outdoors) I have been swimming at least semi-regularly, and my knees have continued to thank me for it. So this coming year? More of the same, except with specific goals instead of those open-ended resolutions.

HANK, did you...
Banish fear.
Envision yourself differently.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, yeah, I kind of did! In a kind of a sometimes-fearless way. (Interesting that those were among my resolutions. Good ones!) I do think I had some realization that we only have one life and if we don't go for it now, when will we? I even had an experiment, I will confess, where I went to a party and just said anything I wanted, without a filter.

And I do envision myself a bit differently, tentatively, carefully--someone told me I had to allow myself to "get big," like cats do when they're angry. Wow. That really works.

SO I'm keeping those resolutions for the next year, too! And being fearless about THE WRONG GIRL,  which I'm very happy with. (And the new book, for which I have NO IDEA. But I am not afraid!)

DEBS, did you...
Do the best you could.
Remind yourself often that you were doing the best you could., and wish all our friends and readers and very happy and productive new year!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Hallie, good on you for reminding us what we resolved last year. And now that my curiosity is piqued, I'll have to go back to that blog post and see what else I SAID I was going to do. I know one resolution was "finish the book," and like you, I did. By the skin of my teeth, but I did. I think I also resolved to have more productive work habits, and to be more organized. Not sure I achieved either. But, hey, I FINISHED THE DAMNED BOOK. (And it's good, too. THE SOUND OF BROKEN GLASS, out February 19th!)

Oh, and I lost ten pounds, although that wasn't a resolution. I'm calling it the "Stress over finishing the damned book diet."

LUCY, you escaped last year by seconding Rhys's list. Sneaky. So how'd you do?

LUCY BURDETTE: Geez, that was kind of lame, wasn't it? And you guys let me get away with that? And meanwhile poor Hank was supposed to banish fear? Yikes!So I did have some adventures--a week on a bare-bones sailboat in the British Virgin Islands, when I am a weenie about the open sea and scary sea creatures, and get easily seasick (and did!) Snorkeling I think should count as my new sport...

Let's see, what else? Two books in one year was a big adventure:).

As for being patient with my John, I think I'll add that back onto this year's list because being kind to your life partner is always a win-win, don't you think? And I'm going to take one from Hallie for this year--chew more slowly--and one from Debs--remind myself that I'm doing the best I can. If I am. (And I'll try...) Happy new year everyone!

HALLIE: So how about the rest of you? Did you do what you promised yourself, or are you pushing those resolutions into 2013... or just accepting whatever tomorrow brings?

Reality or Fiction?

LUCY BURDETTE: We've probably talked about this before (what haven't we talked about??)--but it's on my mind as I scramble to the finish line for Topped Chef. I like to use real places in my books. In the case of the food critic mysteries, this means real Key West restaurants and even some real characters. I can wallow in chocolate crepes at La Creperie or shrimp and grits at Louie's Backyard because it's critical research.

I do have a couple of guidelines: I won't pan places that I dislike (because who needs bad publicity and lawsuits) and I would never poison someone in a real restaurant! There are drawbacks--like people pointing out little mistakes in my geography, and shops disappearing by the time the book hits bookshelves. (In AN APPETITE FOR MURDER, I mentioned Voltaire Bookstore, whose bones are sadly now interred in a bookstore graveyard!)

On the other hand, readers seem to like the realness of the series. Here's an email I got last week from Sharon Porter: "I enjoyed your descriptions of Key West.  Because I've never been there, I used street-view in Google Maps to locate the eateries and other locations you used as background.  It was great fun and made me feel as though I was there with Hayley in the story!"

I loved hearing that! So how about you Reds, how much of what you write is real? And for readers, do you like your settings real or imaginary?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Whenever I ask my husband a question and he answers "Both!" I want to scream - but I'm about to do the same. I do both. My first three books were set in the fictional town of Springfield, CT - somewhere in between Boston and New York and light years from both. I thought it was safe to create a fictional town and I would be spared the research on non-critical details that were not germane to the story. Not so. Someone complained on Amazon that the town was not in southeastern CT (It is if I say it is...)and someone else wrote to the publisher to say there was no mountain in CT as high as one I describe. Cripes! It's not as if I said Everest was in Fairfield County.

So I write an amalgam of real and fiction. Slugfest is set at a legendary northeast flower show which was originally supposed to be the Philly Flower Show, but I quickly realized that I'd hurt feelings - and possibly never be invited back - if I didn't move it. I don't think the story suffered and the folks at Pennsylvania Horticultural Society promoted it on their blog so that one turned out okay!

HALLIE EPHRON: The idea for Never Tell a Lie came to me at a real yard sale at a real Victorian house around the corner from me. The wonderful house that David and Ivy own in the book is in the same exact location as the yard sale house. But the details and interior are a fabulous Victorian that my husband and I bid on when we were house hunting years ago. The people who bought that house found a hidden room which of course I had to put in the book.

I'm taking a risk with my next book ("There Was an Old Woman") which is out in April, setting it in a completely fictional neighborhood (Higgs Point) in a real geographic location (the Bronx near the end of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge). I've made up everything about this neighborhood except its location, its view, and its history. Hopefully those who know better will be kind.

And Lucy: I think you should organize a Snow food tour of Key West - I'd come!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: THE OTHER WOMAN is set in Boston. Real Boston. A big scary scene takes place on the Esplanade--you know, the field by the Charles River where they have the fourth of July fireworks? But there are things I just don't want to do--like have someone killed in a real place. And there's a campaign headquarters in a real building--I can picture it and know right where it is--but I change the name of the building. Jane Ryland lives in Brookline in a place I know very well..but I changed the name of the street.

So I add places that don't exist, and then in the acknowledgments, say: I've taken some liberties. If you weren't familiar with Boston, though, you'd never know.

RHYS BOWEN: I have set myself the daunting task of setting my books in a real place and time. The Molly Murphy series in New York City, early 1900s. Molly lives in a real house (and I had the joy of the present owner writing to share pictures with me, inviting me to their block party). So everything has to be right. She buys a hair ribbon from a real dry good store. She dines in a real restaurant. Luckily this was the age of the Brownie camera so I can find a photograph of almost any street and see the name of the tailor's shop. This pays off as I've got many letters from New Yorkers telling me how I remind them of their early childhood.

All this work might not be necessary but if I use names and places that people know to be real, it affirms the reality of the story.

In the Royal Spyness books I have to be more careful as much of the story takes place in London--which I think I know well and thus don't double check. I made one awful mistake when I put Claridges on the wrong street (and my parents lived next door to the night manager of Claridges. How can I live that down?)
So now I am more careful.

JAN BROGAN -I've approached it both ways.  Both  Final Copy, which was Boston, and the  Hallie Ahern series in Rhode Island made good use of reality  - and I think most readers get a kick out of knowing the street where Hallie lived or the restaurant where she ate or the lake where the dead body was dumped.   But I also wrote a novel called The Devil In Waverley, where the town of Waverley was a fictional seaside town that the tourists passed as they sped by on the highway on the way to Cape Cod. The town itself became so much a character that I had to make up everything from its whaling history to its crazy annual Fourth of July display to the tradition it had for burying its most prestigious citizens. And I have to tell you, I don't know if I've ever had so much fun.

Now, I'm back to reality- st least reality in 1860. As Rhys had already pointed out, it's another layer of challenge getting it all right when everything looked so much different back then.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I love historical fiction, but honestly, I don't know if I could do the kind of research Rhys and Jan have committed to. I've heard readers are even more unforgiving of historical errors than they are of firearms...and we all know what happens if you get a gun wrong in a book!

I made Millers Kill, the scene for my novels, fictional precisely to avoid people telling me I got this street or that shop wrong. On the other hand, I know that part of New York State very well, and the three towns covered by the MKPD are based on real places: Hudson Falls, Argyle and Fort Edward, NY. I try to create a sense of reality by having the people in Millers Kill interact with real things in the area: they read the Glens Falls Post Star, they listen to WAMC, they go sailing in Lake George and shopping in Saratoga.

Of course, I didn't know when I started out that eight books in, I was going to have a four page name bible so I could keep all my made up streets, highways,
 neighborhoods and businesses straight!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I take pretty much the same approach as Lucy. Most of my settings are real.  You can walk down the streets in Notting Hill, and although I never say exactly where Duncan and Gemma's fictional house is, you can probably find it (Although theirs is actually quite different from the house in that spot.  I love using real places and hopefully making them come to life for the reader.  However, I do NOT say negative things about real establishments. And sometimes I change a name of a place I do like because I've put in characters that are, of course, fictional. In the new book (The Sound of Broken Glass, out in February) I've called a real pub, The White Hart, The White Stag. The White Hart is a very nice pub, and you can easily find it on the map from the description in the book. But I've given the fictional manager a name, so just felt more comfortable giving the pub a fictional name as well. So it's just little tweaks like that. Keeps you guessing...

And for fans of the series, if you do a walking tour in Notting Hill, you won't find Otto's Cafe.  It's magic--it only appears for the characters.

How about you Jungle Red Readers--reality or fiction in your fiction?