Huddle up, Reds and Readers!

JENN McKINLAY: And just like that another football season has arrived. This year my three men are in a fantasy football league together so the personal investment in each game is extra high. 

It's gonna be a looooong season, my friends.

When I think about football, I feel as if it has always existed on the periphery of my life. I was in marching band in high school, so I lived Friday night lights but in a band uniform. The game was happening but I was in the percussion section so we were dialed into whatever our squad leader told us to play to hype the crowd. Watching the game was of secondary or even tertiary (if my high school crush was around) interest to me. Plus, our marching band was the east coast champion and our football team...meh, not so good. And yet..."Go, Vikings!"

When I started chaperoning the Hooligans (also percussion members in band) at their Friday night games, I started watching the play on the field between fetching water, stopping nosebleeds, and emergency uniform repairs. Their high school team won the state championship every year and were very exciting to watch, so you could say I came  late to appreciating the game of football. "Go, Sabercats!"

It was during these football years, that I wrote Fondant Fumble, which features two football players who buy a cupcake franchise. I know it sounds like fiction but the idea is actually based on two professional football players who did just that. Read original post: HERE

Now when it comes to team allegiance, I was born in New England so naturally, I was a Patriot's fan. When I moved to Arizona, I slowly shifted my loyalty to the Arizona Cardinals--mostly, because Larry Fitzgerald became my favorite player (retired 2020), notably because of his game on the field but even more for his community work off the field with the Larry Fitzgerald Foundation. FITZ!!!

As you can see, I pick my team allegiance by residence. I believe in rooting for the home team. The Hub grew up in Arizona and while he's a Cards fan, too, his original team was the Dallas Cowboys because AZ didn't have a team when he was a kid. This makes sense to me. We have room in our hearts for more then one "home" team. 

Now the Hooligans, however, have gone rogue. Inexplicably, they are Chicago Bears fans. Huh?! I mean I like the Bears and all, but they're not the home team! Don't get me wrong, the dudes cheer for the Cards, too, but after a trip to Chicago they decided Da Bears were their primary team. How? Why? Make this make sense to me!

So, let's talk about it. 

Reds and Readers, do you pick your favorite team by geographic proximity or some other reason? Who is/are your favorite team(s)--doesn't have to be football--and why?

Why I Love Readers @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I always hold my breath a bit when correspondence from a fan hits my inbox. Will they want the world (including me) to know they hated the book from start to finish, the set-up was preposterous and the character plain stupid, or that an author should never insert her own opinions about ____, just write the damn book? Really, this kind of thing does happen, but luckily not too often. It certainly prevents a writer from suffering of too much head-swelling.

Note from Aunt Flo

When I had my first books published in the early 2000’s, email was only just taking hold. So if someone wanted to write an author, it was longhand, sent through the post office. I still have a few of those I treasure, including this one from an older woman who worried about how much my first character Cassie drank, and how this might affect her golf career aspirations. 

Last summer, one of my readers pointed out how distressing it was to read this sentence in The Key Lime Crime: “But on the other hand, I felt a heavy weight lifting, as though someone had been holding a boot to my neck and I could breathe again.” 

She’d been so upset that she’d had to put the book aside for a while. Of course I’d written that well before George Floyd died and I was as horrified as she to see those words on paper. It was too late to change for the hardcover—already printed. But I was able to remove it for the paperback edition that will be out in July, and I’m grateful to her for pointing it out.

On an entirely different topic, Sue P sent me a note a few years back that absolutely changed the direction I thought I was going with Hayley Snow’s love life:

I recently found this series and love it. I do have a complaint though. I was just getting interested to see how the romance would work out between Hayley and her detective. And you bring back his ex and she gets dumped! I was not a happy camper at this development. I still would like to see where this would go, more so than with her boss, which is where you seem to be leading. I think she needs a challenge and this is not her boss. Bring him back!! Just my opinion. Thanks.

Oh, and sometimes a note is pure joy.  I can’t resist posting this old favorite that had me smiling for weeks:

We are a class of 12 girls in our freshman year at Gymnasium Sylt, a high school which is located in the far north of Germany on the island of Sylt which is surrounded by the North Sea.

We read your book "An Appetite for Murder" in our English lessons (cf. the photo attached) with our English teacher, Mrs Detlefsen. To us it was a really enjoyable book because it is full of romance, action and crime. We particularly liked the Scene with Meredith pushing Hayley off the road and threatening her with a gun. Moreover, we love the different quotations you use, some are so true and fit perfectly.

Though we talked a lot about the characters, the setting and the plot, there are still some questions left we would be grateful for if you could answer them for us. For example, we would really like to know why Hayley just spills the beans about everything (e.g. with the Police) and why she fell in love with that arrogant Person of Chad.

Don't you love that, "arrogant Person of Chad?" 

Writers, what’s the best letter you ever received from a reader? Readers, do you ever send fan or other kind of mail to authors?

GI Clare and Russ

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Writers used to have readers. I mean, we still have readers, of course, but the dramatic increase in social media (combined with an effort to get out there and meet folks at libraries, bookstores and conferences) has changed the game a bit. Now we have fans.

Fans are wonderful. They send you sweet emails and bring you cookies when you're on tour. They take pictures with you and tell their friends to read all your books. But I have a fan that went WAY above and beyond that.

Meet GI Russ and Clare.

They arrived, totally unheralded and unexpected, at the start of the past holiday weekend. I opened up the post office mailer to discover this box.

You can't see it - I missed it at first - but there's a sticker on top that says "Clare and Russ - MKPD" When I opened the bok, it was, as advertised, a GI Jane helicopter pilot. However, like my heroine Clare, this gal had a teeny tiny clerical dicky on.

And she wasn't alone! There was Russ, wearing the khaki-and-brown Millers Kill Police Department uniform.

You know it's MKPD because there's an actual teeny-tiny shoulder patch that reads "MKPD"

Russ is ready for action. In the sixth book in the series, I SHALL NOT WANT, Russ gets shot because, as his deputy chief says, he's not wearing his goddam vest. This Russ has learned his lesson, and has his tactical gear on. 

Clare is suited up for her job as a National Guard helicopter pilot, with her flight vest and helmet.

But of course, her heart is in her clerical service, and for that, she has a black cassock. She's all set to celebrate the Eucharist. 

Of course, if it were all gunshots and piloting, my books wouldn't be as popular as they are. There's also... forbidden love.

Forbidden Love.

FORBIDDEN LOVE.

Of course, it's not so forbidden since Russ and Clare tied the knot in ONE WAS A SOLDIER. Don't they make a lovely couple?

Okay, you two, chill out.

GET A ROOM.

I can't convey to you the delight with which I pulled each piece out of the box and how much fun I had dressing Russ and Clare up and playing with them. This really is the most extraordinary thing (my daughters would say "extra") any fan has ever done.

Reds and readers, is there anything that fans have done for you that made you marvel? Is there something you've done for someone whose work you love?