Why? I know the story. I pretty much know what's going to happen. The trouble is that so much has to happen. This is the complication that ensues when the sleuth has a personal history and agenda as well as doing her job and solving mysteries.
This book will be called FOUR FUNERALS AND MAYBE A WEDDING.
The premise, of course, is that Georgie will finally be getting married. Her path to the future looks like smooth sailing, but then one thing after another starts going wrong. As you can tell from the title people start dying. Georgie finds herself in a difficult situation. Her dream house suddenly isn't.
And the biggest question of all: will she even get married?
Now I know this is a mystery novel. There is supposed to be a crime/a body. The sleuth is supposed to solve it and all is well.
But there is so much of Georgie's personal story in this book that we don't get to any sort of crime until at least a hundred pages. Then we aren't sure it was a crime. We are never sure there is any sort of crime until almost the end of the book. So I'm worried. Will my readers want that body earlier on? They will be concerned about what might be going on around Georgie. They will have suspicions that all is not right. But there will not be a body.
Is this all right, do you think?
Anyway, here is my sample from the book. It's something we've all experienced: those first house hunting attempts that don't turn out as we dreamed. Georgie and Darcy have been to see a couple of absolutely awful flats in London and then comes this third one:
We took the Tube
to Swiss Cottage and walked up a pleasant, tree-lined street. My spirits began
to perk up, especially when we stopped outside a big white block of flats. This
was more like it. We met a very superior type of young man at his office off
the foyer and he escorted us up in the lift.
“It’s a trifle bijou, but I’m sure
we will meet your needs,” he said. “Our flat-dwellers are all most satisfied.
We even had a titled lady here once. Lady Lockstone, is the name familiar to you? It was in all
the society pages.”
Darcy glanced at me and winked.
“What happened to Lady Lockstone?” he asked.
“Unfortunately she passed away. She
was ninety-three after all.”
We disembarked on the tenth floor.
“I’m afraid the lift does not go up to the eleventh,” he said and led us up a
narrow stair. “As I mentioned these apartments are a trifle bijou but for a
young couple like yourselves who probably won’t have too much furniture…” And
he turned the key. It was essentially a room. Quite a decent sized room but it was an attic. The ceiling sloped down on
one side so that we would have to be careful not to bang our heads when we got
up from sofa. Over in one corner there was a curtain around a sink and tiny
stove. “The kitchen,” superior young man said, pulling back the curtain like a
magician revealing a rabbit. “So well designed and compact.”
There was a dining table, a sofa and a bathroom
so tiny that we could just squeeze between the sink and the bath to reach the
loo. And… “Where is the bedroom?” I asked.
“Ah.” He waved his hand like a magic
wand and tugged at a piece of paneled wall. This lowered into a bed. “Such a
space saving device,” he added. “Everything you need right at your fingertips.”
“You’ll be able to reach out of bed
and put on the tea and toast,” Darcy said with a straight face.
Who hasn't gone through something like this? I remember my first flat after college. Sharing with two friends on a street that seemed quite respectable, but there was one loo for three floors and we later discovered that thee prostitutes lived in the basement! Do share your horror stories.
