Bedazzled Book Mascots by Ellen Byron

Jenn McKinlay: Today's guest is the indefatigable Ellen Byron. Seriously, I just saw her in her role as Toastmaster at Left Coast Crime and, truly, she was a in constant motion and hilariously funny as always! Lucky for us, Ellen has a book coming out on March 28th and she's here to tell us all about it. 

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Ellen Byron: I was responding to an email of questions from an interviewer when one of them stopped me cold: “What is your series’ spirit animal?” 

I’d never thought about this before. I’m a dog lover, so I have dogs in all my series. I even have a cat and bird in my Catering Hall Mysteries, which I write under the pen name “Maria DiRico.” But an animal who represents my series thematically and even visually? That never occurred to me. And I began thinking about it. 

 First, I substituted the term “series mascot” for “spirit animal,” out of respect for cultures where the latter has great meaning. Then I thought about the role of a series mascot. 

Visually and emotionally, a mascot should evoke the flavor of your series. While our late basset hound Lucy graces all the covers of my Cajun Country Mysteries, the series mascot is an alligator, which Louisianians often joke is the true state “bird,” as opposed to the brown pelican (a runner-up for series mascot). There’s something about a gator’s sly, crafty ways and general resilience that just felt right for the series. 

A real-life incident inspired my choice of peacock as the Vintage Cookbook Mysteries mascot. While lodging in the Carrollton neighborhood of New Orleans during a visit, I heard a strange shriek coming from outside. I went to check it out and saw a peacock strolling down the street. The series’ main setting is Bon Vee, a stunning19th century mansion in the city’s Garden District. Peacocks are famed for being the Mean Girls – and Guys – of the bird world. The notion of these magnificent birds with attitude parading around a Garden District mansion appealed to me and a series mascot was born. Two, actually: Gumbo and Jambalaya. See if you can spot where the artist behind my Vintage Cookbook Mysteries placed the peacock on the cover of Wined and Died in New Orleans. 

I’ve yet to come up with a mascot for my Catering Hall Mysteries. I jokingly toyed with making that iconic New Yorker, the Pizza Rat, but decided visuals of the poor guy – who never did get to eat that slice of pizza – might be a bit off-putting. But I’ve translated my other series’ mascots into jewelry I wear to signings and conferences, leading to a fun collection of alligator and peacock necklaces and brooches. 

My series’ mascots do more than provide fun branding opportunities. The innate intelligence and attitude of these representatives from the animal and aviary kingdom inspire me as a writer. 

And maybe I’m wrong about Pizza Rat. His infamous battle to claim a slice of pizza twice his size showed him to be as determined and strong-willed as series protagonist Mia Carina. Plus, I just found a really cute Pizza Rat enamel pin. 

 

Pizza Rat New York Brown Rat Two Inch Enamel Pin - Etsy 

Readers, do you agree these are good mascot choices for my series? What animal do you think would make a great mascot for a series you read? 

Leave a comment and be entered in a drawing for a signed

copy of HERE COMES THE BODY! The first in the Catering hall mysteries.

SYNOPSIS for FOUR PARTIES AND A FUNERAL: 

Agatha Award-winning author Maria DiRico returns with the fourth book in the Catering Hall Mystery Series, starring Mia Carina who is coming to grips with being back in Astoria, Queens, and running her Italian-American family’s catering hall, Belle View Banquet Manor but a TV casting call is about to put murder in the spotlight . . .



The June events schedule at Belle View is busting out all over—proms, graduations, and of course, weddings. There are unexpected bookings too, including a casting call for the pilot of Dons of Ditmars Boulevard. But soon, Mia’s fears about the cheesy reality show are confirmed . . .



Belle View quickly becomes the site of a sea of wanna-be goombahs and phony girlfriends, and some of Mia’s friends insist on getting in on the action. The production company owner and his executive producer ex-wife—who’s also very minor British royalty—have assembled a motley crew that does as much infighting and backstabbing as the on-screen “talent.” Even so, it’s a shock when a dead body is found in the pool house of a local mansion rented by the show . . .



Murder might boost the ratings. But Mia intends to make sure the killer gets jail time, not airtime. . .  

BIO: Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won two Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty Awards for Best Humorous Mystery. Bayou Book Thief is the first book in her new Vintage Cookbook Mysteries. She also writes the Catering Hall Mystery series under the name Maria DiRico. 

 Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. She serves on the national board for Mystery Writers of America, and will be the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster. Visit her at Cozy Mysteries | Ellen Byron | Author

A VERY GAUDY CHRISTMAS (and a Giveaway) by Ellen Byron/Maria DiRico

Jenn McKinlay: Very excited to have our pal, Ellen Byron/Maria DiRico here today to kick off the season with her cheerfully festive murdery post, celebrating the release of her latest Catering Hall mystery It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder! Welcome, Ellen!

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Ellen Byron: My favorite holiday activity is aimlessly driving around town looking at other people’s outdoor Christmas decorations. I don’t know where this habit comes from. Certainly not my childhood, where my mother hung a wreath on the front door and called it a day, if she even bothered to do that much. We lived in a Westchester suburb which was far too “sophisticated” to indulge in the holiday decorating histrionics of the New York City boroughs. There might be the occasional, extremely tasteful string of white lights, but that was it. Growing up, I had to rely on visits to our relatives in Queens for my fix of cheery, over-the-top outside holiday décor, like what you see pictured on the cover of my new book, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder.

When our daughter came along in 2000, I decided she would not be deprived of holiday kitsch, so I mapped out a route of nearby homes I could count on for gaudy displays. While our southern California neighborhood of Studio City went for minimalism, I found exactly what I was looking for in nearby Burbank, particularly a home so decoration-heavy it’s been in books and on TV…

Although I have to give the home’s next-door neighbor the award for best holiday decoration of all…

Eliza bowed out of my beloved holiday activity when she became a teenager, so I roamed the streets alone and lonely. Even the house where you could tune in to their private radio station to hear music coordinated with their laser display didn’t cheer me up. And then I came up with an idea. Why not invite a few of my gal pals to join me? I reached out to three neighbors, and they eagerly signed on for the adventure. What a joy it was introducing them to holiday sights none of them had ever seen before. We finished the evening with cocktails at a local bar, adding a boozy period to our exclamation mark celebrating the holidays. Since then, it’s become a tradition for us.

Covid curtailed our Christmas Outdoor Décor Crawl in 2020, but we’re resurrecting it in 2021. And if you’re wondering what our house looks like during the holidays, here’s a photo…

Yes, all white lights. You can take the girl out of Westchester Country, but you can’t take the WC out of the girl. Every year we debate skipping our display, and then a neighbor walks by and asks when the deer will go up on the roof and tells us how much they look forward to it, and my husband pulls out the ladder.

Our house may not make a book or TV show, and we may not offer our own synchronized music station, but to know “the house with the deer on the roof” may be on someone else’s Christmas Outdoor Décor Tour fills me with the spirit of the holidays.

Readers, do you enjoy over-the-top holiday displays? Are there any in your neighborhood? Comment to be entered to win a copy of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder.

 

SYNOPSIS: Astoria, Queens, is decorated within an inch of its life for the Christmas season, and Mia Carina is juggling her job at the Belle View catering hall with a case of murder . . .

 Mia’s busy with a full schedule of events at the family business—among them an over-the-top Nativity-themed first birthday party and a Sweet Sixteen for a teen drama queen. But her personal life is even more challenging. Her estranged mother has returned—and her lifelong friend Jamie has discovered a shocking secret about his past. He’s so angry that he starts hanging out with Lorenzo, who claims to be his long-lost brother—even after it becomes clear that Lorenzo’s story is as fake as a plastic Christmas tree.

Then a body turns up among the elves in a Santa’s-workshop lawn display, and amateur sleuth Mia has a buffet of suspects to choose from. Amid the holiday celebrations, she intends to find out who’s the guilty party . . .

 Italian recipes included!

BIO: Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won the Agatha award for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty awards for Best Humorous Mystery. She writes the Catering Hall Mystery series, under the name Maria DiRico, and will debut the Vintage Cookbook Mysteries (as Ellen) in June 2022. Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like WINGS, JUST SHOOT ME, and FAIRLY ODD PARENTS. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. She blogs with Chicks on the Case, is a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America, and will be the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster. Please visit her at https://www.ellenbyron.com/

Connect with Ellen: 

Newsletter: https://www.ellenbyron.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellenbyronauthor/ https://www.facebook.com/CateringHallMysteries/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellenbyronmariadirico/ Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ellen-byron https://www.bookbub.com/authors/maria-dirico Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23234.Ellen_Byron?from_search=true&from_srp=true

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19130966.Maria_DiRico?from_search=true&from_srp=true

THE COAT THAT HID MY SECRET by Ellen Byron

Jenn McKinlay: As always, I am ever delighted to welcome our dear friend, award winning mystery author, Ellen Byron, to the Jungle Reds and, boy, does she have a story for you. Take it away, Ellen!

Ellen Byron: Before I began writing mysteries, I wrote for TV and film—sitcoms mostly, like Wings and Just Shoot Me, to name a couple you’ve heard of as opposed to the many shows I worked on that died a quick death. I wrote as half of a team, my partner being a friend I made in a sitcom writing class. Eventually we each got married and then segued into parenthood. She had a baby first, a glorious little boy. And we quickly learned that nobody wanted to hire new mothers, even if you had a perfectly great childcare plan in place, like she did. So when I became pregnant, I made a choice I hoped would help us land a new job. I hid my pregnancy. Not for the first trimester, like many do. I hid it for eight months.  

I was lucky on one count. As I gained weight, I gained it all over. I wasn’t one of those pregnant women who aside from looking like they swallowed a bowling ball, remained slim. Every part of me puffed out, which allowed me to present as rotund rather than expectant. I went to a thrift store and bought a giant black men’s overcoat that I’d wear to meetings to hide myself from the neck down. We met for a position on Sex and the City when I was at eight and a half months along, and to justify my girth, I blathered on about how excited I was to move back to my hometown of NYC and eat my way through the city. But by that point, my poor coat was busting at the seams. We didn’t get the job.

 

Attendees to my baby shower were sworn to secrecy. My husband didn’t even tell his coworkers we were expecting. Then preeclampsia put me in hospital and dictated a delivery three weeks before my due date. My husband rushed to the hospital, sharing the news that his wife was about to give birth with his stunned work friends on his way out the door.

 A secret shower, a giant coat over a burgeoning belly - my pregnancy was straight out of the sitcoms I wrote for. In my new release, LONG ISLAND ICED TINA, events at a baby shower set the mystery in motion. But I spared the poor mother-to-be in the book my own nutty subterfuge. Still, writing it brought back a lot of memories. 

 

Recently, I took a stab at Marie Kondo-ing a closet and in its farthest reaches I found that old black overcoat. Aside from a few loose buttons, it was in great shape. Debating whether or not to donate it, I asked the classic Kondo question: did the coat give me joy? The answer was yes. Crazy as those eight months of my pregnancy were, they brought me the joy of our daughter —who turned twenty-one two weeks ago. 

I kept the coat.

 

Readers, do you have a piece of clothing that has a special memory attached to it? Comment to be entered to win a copy of LONG ISLAND ICED TINA.

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LONG ISLAND ICED TINA SYNOPSIS - KENSINGTON

 

In the second installment of Maria DiRico's new Catering Hall Mystery series, Mia Carina is back in the borough of Queens, in charge of the family catering hall Belle View Banquet Manor and keeping her nonna company. But some events--like murder at a shower--are not the kind you can schedule...

Mia's newly pregnant friend Nicole plans to hold a shower at Belle View--but Nicole also has to attend one that her competitive (and mysteriously rich) stepmother, Tina, is throwing at the fanciest place in Queens. It's a good chance for Mia to snoop on a competitor, especially since doing a search for "how to run a catering hall" can get you only so far.

Mia tags along at the lavish party, but the ambience suffers at Nicole's Belle View shower when a fight breaks out--and then, oddly, a long-missing and valuable stolen painting is unwrapped by the mom-to-be. Tina is clearly shocked to see it. But not as shocked as Mia is when, soon afterward, she spots the lifeless body of a party guest floating in the marina . . .

Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won the Agatha award for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty awards for Best Humorous Mystery. She writes the Catering Hall Mystery series, which are inspired by her real life, under the name Maria DiRico. Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like WINGS, JUST SHOOT ME, and FAIRLY ODD PARENTS. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. 

Newsletter: https://www.ellenbyron.com/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/ellenbyronauthor/

https://www.facebook.com/CateringHallMysteries/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/ellenbyronmariadirico/

Bookbub:

https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ellen-byron

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/maria-dirico

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23234.Ellen_Byron?from_search=true&from_srp=true

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19130966.Maria_DiRico?from_search=true&from_srp=true

Viva Strong Italian Women! by Maria DiRico

JENN McKINLAY: One of my favorite authors, Ellen Byron, is visiting today but she is appearing as her alter ego Maria DiRico to introduce us to her brand new Catering Hall mystery series! I was lucky enough to read and advance copy and called it "A fresh, fun, and fabulous debut to what promises to be a fantastic new mystery series!" Here's Ellen/Maria to tell us more about what inspired this series. Also, she's offering a giveaway! One lucky commenter will be randomly chosen to receive a copy. Don't miss out!

Ellen: The relationship between my protagonist and her “nonna” in my new Catering Hall Mysteries is central to the series. This reflects my wonderful luck of having been raised with two strong women as role models – my mother and grandmother, both Italian immigrants. 

They came from a picturesque town called Orsogna in the Abruzzo region, immigrating to America in 1930, just in time for the Great Depression. Here’s a photo taken shortly after their arrival. The stuffed animal was a prop. Mom says she screamed bloody murder when she had to return it to the photographer.

Life was hard for the new arrivals. They ate rotten fruit that shops discarded. For a treat, mother would pick up lollipops or gum kids dropped on the street. My grandfather, who I never knew, scraped together whatever jobs he could. Nonna found piecemeal work crocheting rosettes for baby’s hats. She and my mother would pick up a gross of the hats from a factory in Queens and carry them back to whatever apartment they were living in at the time. Nonna was paid $1.50 per gross. Mom says that because of this, she’s never forgotten that a gross equals 144. It’s emblazoned on her brain.

Eventually my grandfather got a job with the city as a sewer cleaner. Nonna went to work in a factory doing sewing piecework, meaning she was paid per finished piece. It wasn’t easy but Papa and Nonna managed to save enough money to buy this two-family home in Astoria. 

Meanwhile, Mom carved her own path. She trained herself to speak without the thick New York/Italian accent of her family and got a job as a secretary in Manhattan. Raised by her father to love reading and the arts, she shared that passion with her younger cousins. Here she is with her late cousin Antoinette, who once told me that the times she spent exploring the Big Apple with Mom were some of the happiest memories of her life. 

Italy is considered a matriarchal society. The power of the women in my immediate and extended Italian family was proof positive of that. Besides my nonna and mother, there were the cousins who came over from Italy with barely any schooling, saved their pennies, and bought buildings in Astoria that made them millionaires. One cousin, the first in the family to attend college, became a doctor. Years later, her mother, who had arrived in America at the age of fifteen after surviving the horrors of World War II, did the exact same thing.

Mom used to sing to me an old Orsognese song that went
"Le donne di Orsogna sono le più belle." Translation: the
women of Orsogna are the prettiest. They're also the smartest,
most resourceful women around, and I and so proud to share
their genes and history.

By the way, "Maria DiRico," my pen name, was Nonna's 

maiden name. Viva le donne di Orsogna!

So, how about it, Reds and Readers, have your parents and grandparents influenced your writing or your life? Where did they come from and how has it influenced you?

HERE COMES THE BODY is available at your local bookstore, as well at Amazon and Barnes and Noble

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BIO: Maria DiRico is the pen name of mystery author Ellen Byron, who is first-generation Italian American on her mother’s side. MARDI GRAS MURDER, the fourth book in Ellen's bestselling Cajun Country Mystery series, won the 2018 Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. The series has also won multiple Best Humorous Mystery Lefty awards. TV credits include Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. Fun fact: she worked as cater-waiter for Martha Stewart, a credit she never tires of sharing. Maria/Ellen loves to translate what she learned from Martha into recipes for her books. You can reach her at:

http://www.ellenbyron.com/

https://www.ellenbyron.com/catering-hall-mysteries

https://www.facebook.com/ellenbyronauthor/

https://www.facebook.com/CateringHallMysteries/