Now That You Mention It @KristanHiggins

LUCY BURDETTE: I'm so happy when one of my automatic-read authors have a new release--and these week, I've had two! Kristan Higgins is one of those, and her eighteenth book, a romantic comedy called NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT, will be out on December 26th. And I'm delighted to welcome her to JRW today!

Kristan please tell us a bit about the new book--I'm thinking all of our readers w ill want to hear the story about where the bad boyfriend comes from...

KRISTAN HIGGINS: Will you accept pure imagination as my answer? No?

Here’s the thing about Bobby Byrne, the not-hero and delightfully crappy boyfriend in NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT. He’s a drama-feeder. Some men are great in a crisis, and when the crisis fades, so does their affection. The thrill of being a white knight isn’t as thrilling once you have to unsaddle the horse and shovel out the stall, if you will. Bobby is also a guy who hedges his bets; starts scoping out new women before he breaks up with his current boo; gives mixed messages about what he wants in a relationship; hints that he made a big mistake dumping you, then doesn’t return your phone calls.

And yes, I dated that guy, more or less. Like me, Nora finds a much more stable, dependable guy who likes her with or without drama, because he just likes her. Exactly as she is, to quote Mark Darcy. Le sigh.

LUCY: I think mystery writers run into the same problem that romance writers do—getting our books taken seriously. Have you figured out what to say to people who wonder when you're going to start writing "literature"?

KRISTAN: I love a good romance novels, but the idea that they’re less than books from other genres is ridiculous. Finding a kind, respectful, loving partner is one of the strongest urges we have as humans. Why are books about that dismissed? And why are mysteries? Because smart people solve crimes or figure out the answers to complicated situations? Is that a bad thing somehow?

I tend to find that people who dismiss our genres either haven’t read them or are simply rather joyless and boring. When someone asks, “When are you going to write a real book, Kristan?” I answer with a question of my own: “Have you read my books? What’s fake about them?”

LUCY: After two series, your last few books, including next week's release, have been stand-alones. Can you tell us a bit about that transition and the pros and cons of writing each? And what can we look forward to in the future?

KRISTAN: Writing women’s fiction is harder, I think. The nice thing about a romance, especially a romance as part of a series, is that the characters and setting are familiar, and you know how the book will end—the couple will overcome their personal issues and find the love they’ve earned. The transition to a genre that’s a little weightier was a natural step for me. I wanted to write about more than the couple, their witty banter and sexy time (though don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with those elements!). My work was drifting in that direction, and my publisher was all for it. So I write what I consider romantic women’s fiction. There’s a satisfying love story, but there are a lot more things going on as well. Family secrets, personal heartache, job and relationship troubles, things that happened in the past that still nip at your heels.

My next book is in the hopper, and it tackles a really emotional issue: body image and self-acceptance. It’s about three friends who met at weight loss camp as teenagers. Seventeen years later, one of them dies suddenly, and a list they made as kids resurfaces, reminding them what they thought life would be like as adults. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT will be out next summer.

Thank you for having me at Jungle Red with all you fabulous people! It’s an honor! Oh, and one more thing: preorders of NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT support St. Jude Children’s Hospital, a cause near and dear to my heart. You can find ordering links at my website. 

LUCY: Any questions or comments for Kristan, reds? Theories about why crime fiction and romance are considered less important, even though they sell like mad?

Hazelnut Wreaths for Christmas @barbross

LUCY BURDETTE: Hooray! Barbara Ross has a new book in her Maine clambake series out next week. And she agreed to visit us with tales of Hazelnut Christmas cookies and news of the book...welcome Barb!

BARBARA ROSS: Thanks so much for having me, Lucy. We moved this year. It was a big move and we’re still unpacking. We’re celebrating Christmas with our son’s family, so we’ve barely decorated our new house. No tree, no stockings hung by the chimney with care, no holiday mugs to fill with cocoa or eggnog.

Barb with son Rob

But there was one tradition I couldn’t ignore—cookie baking. I’ve been making six kinds of Christmas cookies for more than forty years. If I’d skipped this activity my family would conclude that something is terribly wrong with Mom.

So rather than face that, I found the baking sheets, the cookie cutters, the tins and other necessities. Five of the six kinds of cookies I make come from a book of recipes made by my maternal grandmother the year before she died. We are into at least the sixth generation making some of these, so I can see why my family has expectations.

daughter and granddaughter

One of the types of traditional cookies I make are the hazelnut wreaths. They are delicate and delicious with the flavor of the nuts, which some people call filberts. They’re cut with a donut cutter to make the round wreaths and decorated, in the absolutely worst job of the entire cookie-making extravaganza, with red and green dyed candied pineapple intended to suggest a bow. This involves sticky fingers and lots of cursing and everyone usually scatters when I am looking for volunteers. My husband Bill was kind enough to do the job this year.

The truth is I’m not much of a baker. Aside from seasonal fruit pies, the Christmas cookies are often the entire output of my baking year. My hazelnut wreaths look more like hazelnut flat tires and my butter cookie animals usually look like they come from a farm where someone is doing monstrous DNA experiments. The cookies aren’t as good as my mother’s, who was convinced hers weren’t as good as her mother’s, and so on through the generations.

Nevertheless, I persist.

Here is the hazelnut wreath recipe. May the more intrepid among you enjoy both the baking and, especially, the eating. They are worth it.

Hazelnut Wreaths

Ingredients

1/2 pound butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

4 ounces chopped hazelnuts

Directions

Cream butter and sugar and set aside.

Beat the eggs well.

Add flour, nuts, and the creamed butter and sugar to the eggs and mix until blended. (I use a food processor for this.)

Form the dough into flat circles about the size of a saucer. You will get four to six of these.

Wrap well in wax paper and place in refrigerator for four hours or overnight.

Remove one dough circle from the refrigerator and roll it out flat on a floured surface.

Cut into rings, using a cookie or doughnut cutter. Place rings on a parchment-covered cookie sheet.

When you have cut as many rings as you can, reroll the remaining dough and cut again until you have used all the dough. Then remove the next batch from the refrigerator and repeat.

Prior to baking, decorate as you wish. We use candied pineapple to form little bows on the wreathes with a red center and green at either side. However you choose to decorate, do it lightly. The flavor of the cookie is delicate and you don’t want to overwhelm it.

Bake at 350 degrees for ten to twelve minutes. The cookies should be lightly brown.

Readers: Do you have something you do or make every year that you just wouldn’t be you if you didn’t?

Bio

Barbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries: Clammed Up, Boiled Over, Musseled Out, Fogged Inn and Iced Under. Stowed Away, the sixth Maine Clambake Mystery will be released December 26, 2017. Her holiday novella featuring amateur sleuth Julia Snowden is included with novellas by Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis in Eggnog Murder from Kensington Books.

Barbara’s books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel, and RT Books Reviewer’s Choice Awards, as well as the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. She blogs with a wonderful group of Maine mystery authors at Maine Crime Writers and with a group of writers of New England-based cozy mysteries at Wicked Cozy Authors. In the summer, Barbara writes on the big front porch of the former Seafarer Inn at the head of the harbor in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

About Stowed Away

It’s June in Busman’s Harbor, Maine, and Julia Snowden and her family are working hard to get their authentic Maine clambake business ready for summer. Preparations must be put on hold, however, when a mysterious yacht drops anchor in the harbor—and delivers an unexpected dose of murder . . .

Chimp Serendipity @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: Yesterday's post was deep and important stuff. Today's post is lighter, about how chimpanzees have appeared on my radar...not real ones of course, not yet anyway! And I'd love to hear whether you have noticed any odd themes in your life....

For the last several years--and I’m not sure how I got started--I’ve been sending contributions to Chimp Haven. They take in chImps that have been retired from biomedical research and provide a refuge that allows them to live out their lives as close to their natural state as possible. The photos I get in my email are irresistible! Someday I am going to get to Louisiana to visit these guys. This is Ladybird, who arrived in Monday's email:

Then I read of a children’s book called Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell about Jane Goodall's work with chimps in Africa--probably in the New York Times Book Review's round-up of kids' books. So last fall when we were visiting the Strand bookstore in New York, I found a copy for my granddaughter. It’s very cute and a great story about an amazing woman and her message about what we humans owe to the other species we share the planet with. I hope Dorothea loves it when she gets a little older.

And then the movie "Jane" came out this fall. Of course John and I went to see it--an excellent documentary about a remarkable woman. See it if you get a chance, and take the young people in your life to see it too--such a great message about our obligations to other creatures on this earth.



And then I started Karen Joy Fowler‘s book We are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which my sister had raved about eons ago. The story contains a chimp. I will not say any more for fear of spoiling the story, but I loved loved loved this book. 

I called my sister to tell her how much I loved it, and learned that my niece by marriage, Hannah Canter, who works with her mother, Marta Kaufman, at the production company Okay Goodnight, has optioned this very book for a screen adaptation. I would be so excited if this book was developed into a movie!




So strangely enough, a chimp theme runs through my life. I don't know what it means or why it's emerged, but I couldn't resist sharing it during this busy week. 

Can you put your finger on any themes that have appeared in your life? Do you have unusual causes you support?