When in Rome…or Mexico…or Napa with Marla Cooper

JENN: I was lucky enough to meet Marla Cooper at a Left Coast Crime conference in Portland (it was Portland, wasn't it, Marla?) a few years ago. We met in the audience of a cozy-noir panel and bonded over our love of the traditional mystery and our own stellar abilities at cuss words. Marla is sassy and funny and a delight to chat with so when she mentioned she had a book coming out, I offered to read it for an endorsement because I figured it had to be good. I was right because the book was TERROR IN TAFFETA which was nominated for a Lefty for best debut novel! As expected, it was terrific and it kicks off her series about a destination wedding planner (genius!). So, here is Marla to talk more about destinations...

MARLA: One question I get asked a lot — second only to “Where do you get your ideas?” — is: “Do you actually visit the places you write about?”

The short answer? Absolutely! When you’re trying to evoke a sense of place, you owe it to yourself to visit in person, because there are some things you just can’t learn on the internet. And besides: vacation!

See, my heroine is a destination wedding planner, so each book is set in a different location. And instead of creating a fictional small town, like any reasonably sane person writing a series would do, I chose to write about real places that lots of people have actually visited. I know I couldn’t do justice to the settings without going there in person, and readers would totally bust me if I even tried.

I won’t lie: I don’t feel put upon that I “have” to do all that research. And invariably, I learn things that not only go in the book, but actually affect the plot. When it was time to decide where to set the second book in my series, Dying on the Vine, I picked the Napa and Sonoma wine country. And boy, did I ever take my research seriously!

It all started with a visit to Domaine Carneros, which looks like this:

I was there tasting sparkling wine with my husband and my friend Brian (my real-life Brody), and there was a wedding party celebrating on the patio. (Excuse me, terrace. A place this grand doesn’t have a mere patio.) Of course, that immediately got me thinking about my protagonist Kelsey and what would happen if she were to plan a wedding there.

However, Kelsey doesn’t usually book venues that are quite so grand, so that got me thinking about what kind of wedding planner would feel right at home there. She’d probably be a bit of a diva. Larger than life. A little pushy and grandiose herself. And thus was born Babs Norton, the Queen of Wine Country Weddings.

In the book, Babs Norton is a preferred vendor at Higgins Estate, which bears a striking resemblance to Domaine Carneros. (I’m sure they’d like me to insert a disclaimer here that there are absolutely no dangerous goings-on or sinister plots there, and that everything except for the setting is 100% a work of fiction.)

So where would Kelsey like to plan a wedding? I think she’d prefer someplace like Preston Farm & Winery, which by some stroke of coincidence just happens to be my favorite winery. Preston has a 100-year-old farmhouse, picnic tables, cats lolling about in the sun, vegetables for sale from the garden, and of course great wine.

I love Preston so much that I decided to give them an old barn that Kelsey thinks would make a great wedding venue, and thus a subplot was born. Since they don’t actually have a barn, I turned to Pinterest, and … voila! (I love what Kelsey did with the place.)       

But perhaps the most inspiring thing of all were the wine caves. I knew that some wineries had started digging caves into the hillsides for underground wine storage, and some of them even had event rooms. That sounded promising, so I found one and took a tour. The caves are dark, they’re chilly, and they lack cell reception. (Ooooooohhhh…..)

I knew I had to use it in my book. And just in case I needed a sign, well, there was this:

(I’m assuming that’s just cabernet sauvignon, but still, it got my attention.)

After seeing how inextricably my plot and my setting became intertwined, I realized that visiting the locations is about more than just getting the details right. It’s about finding my story.

Also? Pretty much anywhere I travel these days, I’ve got my eye out for the scene of the crime.

So, what about you, Reds? How do you pick your setting? And is it as integral to your story as a character in the book?

ABOUT MARLA: Marla Cooper is the author of TERROR IN TAFFETA, an Agatha and Lefty finalist for Best First Mystery Novel and book one in the Kelsey McKenna Destination Wedding Mysteries. Her second book, DYING ON THE VINE, is set in the California wine country and is now available from Minotaur Press. Originally hailing from Texas, Marla lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and her polydactyl tuxedo cat. Learn more at www.marla-cooper.com.

Marla's latest release is DYING ON THE VINE:

When wedding planner Kelsey McKenna goes to the Wine Country Wedding Faire, the last thing she expects to do is take on new clients. After all, she’s just there to help out her friend Brody and maybe score some free cupcakes. But when a young couple in a pinch asks for her help, she just can't say no.

There’s only one problem: they’d been working with Babs Norton, the self-proclaimed Queen of Wine Country Weddings—and things did not end well. Kelsey wants to make sure there are no hard feelings, but unfortunately she never gets the chance. When she goes to Babs’ office, she finds the wedding planner dead on the floor.

Babs' high-strung assistant Stefan knows exactly who killed Babs: Kelsey. At least, that's what he very publicly accuses her of at Babs' funeral. When Kelsey decides to do a little sleuthing to clear her name, she uncovers a myriad of secrets and lies. And when a second wedding planner is attacked, Kelsey begins to wonder if she might be next.

Going Organic

 RHYS: Yesterday I played hooky for a day with my friends Deborah Crombie, Terry Shames and Diana Chambers. We drove north from the Bay area to the little town of Healdsburg. This used to a a small farming town, maybe a barbecue place a couple of bars, a feed store. But then the area was taken over by wineries and it's become a destination resort. A couple of lovely hotels in the town square, lots of wine tasting spots and a good selection of restaurants. The place we wanted to have lunch was full with no hope of a table any time soon so we walked around and settled on a Portuguese restaurant instead. We were so glad that we did! The atmosphere was fabulous--we were given an interesting amuse bouche, a salty shot in a glass, then we shared a tasting plate and each had a main course. I had cod cakes--very tasty. So did Debs. Diana heirloom tomato salad and Terry had the tripe--uh, not so much.

One thing that struck me, walking around Healdsburg was how very typically Northern California it was. Apparently one place had the best kale salad in the universe. The clothing stores featured natural fabrics or recycled Japanese kimonos. So expensive. So organic.

I find myself living in an organic world and I'm rather amused that this is a new concept. I grew up on organic food. My dad always had a big veggie garden. We had an acre of fruit trees. We kept chickens. My grandmother, who lived to 91, had never eaten anything from a can or that was frozen in her life. She only ate English meat and local produce. (There was a problem when she lived in Wales and asked if the tomatoes were English. We don't sell foreign food here said the sales lady). I'm all for food that is antibiotic free, raised naturally, grass fed beef, free range chickens. And my veggies that are not GM, not sprayed with lethal pesticides. If I had time and lived in one place I'd like to grow my own veggies.

But organic has become a buzzword, especially here in Norcal. Local ladies go to the farmer's market with baskets on their arms and play at simple peasant women before getting back into their BMWs and Audies and delivering the produce to the help to cook.  My son and daughter in law seem to have a refrigerator full of kale. They have green smoothies and cleanses. It's an interesting contrast from when I was first married. The women of an older generation who gave me recipes and advice all cooked with jello, cream of chicken soup and cool whip in almost every dish. So I'm glad we're out of that era. But I'm not a huge green kale smoothie fan either.

And now organics have taken over my bath.  I love bath products but I've found they can be a little too organic. I thought that a trail of ants had come and drowned in my bath until I realized it was the lavender flowers from my bath salts. And the organic oatmeal soak? Trying not to be too gross but it looked as if someone had vomited into my tub.

Our family motto is Inter Utrumque Tene. Steer a middle course. This will continue to be my motto. Grass fed where possible, local produce too but I draw the line at the kale.

How about you?  Is organic important to you? Are you into the green smoothies or ice cream?  Fries or roasted kale?