Mystery Author of the Month: Jacqueline Seewald

Patricia: Welcome, Jacqueline! Tell us, where did you grow up? Did your childhood contribute to your desire to be a writer?

Jacqueline: I was born and raised in New Jersey and am a lifelong resident. My childhood did contribute to my desire to be a writer. My mother was a reader. She loved to read novels. Going to the library with her was always a wonderful adventure. Early on, I became an avid reader as well. It wasn’t long before I was making up my own stories and writing them down as soon as I was able. My mother bought me my first Smith Corona portable typewriter when I was eleven years old and taught me how to touch type. I started typing my stories and never stopped—although for many years now I’ve worked on a computer.

Patricia: Where do you live now? Do you use that locale for settings in your novels?

Jacqueline: I still live in New Jersey, although we moved from the Central to the Northern part of the state a few years ago. The main setting for my Kim Reynolds novels is a town in Central Jersey very similar to the one I lived in for forty years. The Inferno Collection, The Drowning Pool, and The Truth Sleuth are all set in Central NJ.

Patricia: What inspired you to write your most recent novel?

Jacqueline: The Third Eye: A Pine Barrens Mystery is different from any of my other novels. I’ll explain what inspired this book. I’ve always loved the Pine Barrens of NJ. They are quite unique in many ways. When I worked as a librarian in a children’s elementary school for several years, a fourth grade project was to do something related to the Jersey Devil and the Pine Barrens. I discovered that there were very few books for young children on this topic. So to help with the project, I wrote my own. It was very well received in the school. At a NJ conference of educational media specialists, I spoke with a NJ publisher and discussed the lack of materials. I told them I had written a book on the subject. Afton Publishing was receptive and eventually published A Devil in the Pines. Not long ago, I got the idea for a mystery novel for adults and suitable for teenagers also set in the Pine Barrens. My son Andrew who is an attorney in New Brunswick, NJ, collaborated on the book with me. A teenage boy and his mother, in alternating chapters from their different viewpoints and perspectives, both move toward the solution of several murders. Five Star/Gale, my publisher for five previous novels, recently published the book.

Patricia: When did you “know” that you wanted to be a writer?

Jacqueline: I was an imaginative child. Early on I wanted to write. English was my favorite subject in school and I excelled at it.  It seems as though I always wanted to be a writer. I loved reading and wanted to write my own stories from a very young age.

Patricia: Name three of your favorite authors in the mystery/suspense genre. What makes them your favorites?

Jacqueline: Now that’s a very difficult question to answer because there are so many! I suppose at the top of my list would have to be Sara Paretsky. Her tough female P.I. novels started a trend. She was the founder of Sisters in Crime as well. I was honored when she endorsed my first mystery novel for Five Star/Gale The Inferno Collection. She provided a wonderful blurb for the cover which drew reviewers to the novel. It was the first of the Kim Reynolds librarian sleuth mysteries that I wrote. It was followed by The Drowning Pool and The Inferno Collection. All three novels received good reviews and have recently been brought out in paperback by Harlequin Worldwide Mystery. Perfect Crime Books will be bringing out the four Kim Reynolds mystery, The Bad Wife. I’m excited about that. Jayne Ann Krentz who writes romantic suspense is an outstanding, versatile author. She too was very generous to me personally, reading and endorsing my historical romantic suspense novel Tea Leaves and Tarot Cards.

For male authors, I’m very fond of John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers series.  I love the humor he instills in violent and gruesome novels that are as much police procedural/thrillers as mysteries.  John Grisham is a favorite of mine as well. I consider The Rainmaker one of his best books in a quality sense. Michael Connelly is another mystery/thriller writer whose books I enjoy reading. He’s a very talented author. His main characters are well-rounded and realistic.

Multiple award-winning author, Jacqueline Seewald, has taught creative, expository and technical writing at Rutgers University as well as high school English. She also worked as both an academic librarian and an educational media specialist. Fifteen of her books of fiction have been published to critical praise including The Inferno Collection, The Drowning Pool, The Truth Sleuth and Death Legacy. Newly released in hardcover is her co-authored mystery The Third Eye. Her short stories, poems, essays, reviews and articles have appeared in hundreds of diverse publications and numerous anthologies. You can check out her two most recently published mysteries on Amazon, Barnes and Noble Online, or Goodreads:

 THE THIRD EYE

http://www.amazon.com/Third-Eye-Pine-Barrens-Mystery/dp/1432826980/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380463378&sr=1-1&keywords=the+third+eye+seewald

 and

 DEATH LEGACY

 at

http://www.harlequin.com/storeitem.html?iid=28798&cid=337

Jacqueline is offering a copy of the Harlequin Worldwide Mystery paperback edition of Death Legacy to someone who leaves a comment, limited to U.S. residents.
The winner is M.M. Gornell. Congratulations, Madeline!

Mystery of the Month: Unfinished Business

The Westwood Strangler is dead. Or so everyone believes.

Ann Kern is busy preparing for her favorite holiday. She’s especially looking forward to her sister’s annual Christmas visit. But, several things threaten to ruin her festive mood.

The National Weather Service issues a severe winter storm warning for the Cincinnati area, predicting blizzard conditions, and Ann worries that her sister and her new boyfriend won’t be able to make the drive from South Carolina.

Then, a woman is found strangled in Ann’s neighborhood and everyone, including the police, assumes it’s the work of a copycat killer. However, when two more women are murdered in their homes, the police announce their conviction that the Westwood Strangler is responsible.

When Ann hears the news, the sense of safety and security she’s worked so hard to recapture since her attack on Halloween night, shatters. If the intruder who died in her apartment wasn’t the Westwood Strangler, who is? And, who will be the next victim?

Buy links:

myBook.to/PatriciaGligor2

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unfinished-business-patricia-gligor/1113769826?ean=9780615723747

Patricia Gligor lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. She enjoys reading mystery/suspense novels, touring and photographing old houses and traveling. She has worked as an administrative assistant, the sole proprietor of a resume writing service and the manager of a sporting goods department for a local retail chain but her passion has always been writing fiction. Mixed Messages, the first novel in her Malone Mystery Series, and the sequel, Unfinished Business, were published by Post Mortem Press. Her third novel, Desperate Deeds, will be released in early 2014.

How to put a smile on an author's face - write a nice review for their book. 
Here's a review I received that put a BIG smile on my face. :)

"Fans of Mary Higgins Clark will greet this novel with enthusiasm. Like Clark in her early classic mystery/suspense novel A Stranger Is Watching, Gligor creates a frightening world for a sympathetic protagonist. Ann Kern, loving wife and mother, is surrounded by threats. Her husband, an alcoholic and a gambler, is emotionally unstable. There is also a serial killer on the prowl on the west side of Cincinnati and it appears that Ann is intended to be his next victim. There are a number of possible suspects. Author Gligor thoroughly develops each character in the novel, going into back stories, thoughts, behavior and actions. But this does not slow the plot which develops at a fast pace. Definitely a novel the reader will not put down until the final words are read."
Jacqueline Seewald, author of Death Legacy

Mystery of the Month, A Secondhand Murder

Blurb:
Spunky and outspoken Eve Appel moves from Connecticut to rural Florida intent on starting a new life, free of drama, and more importantly, her soon-to-be ex-husband. The rural Florida town of Sabal Bay, situated only an hour from West Palm,  proves to be the perfect spot for her consignment store. Thanks to the recent economic downturn, Florida’s society matrons need a place to discreetly sell their stuff and pick up expensive-looking bargains. But Eve’s life, and her business with it, is turned upside down when a wealthy customer is found stabbed to death in a fitting room.
As accusations fly and business slows, Eve decides to take things into her own hands. With the help of an unlikely bunch of friends—including her estranged ex, her best friend, a handsome private eye, and a charming mafia don—she struggles to find answers and save lives. Through a maze of distorted half-truths, dramatic cover-ups, and unrequited passions, Eve learns just how far the wealthy will go to regain what they have lost. 

Buy link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603819355/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1603819355&linkCode=as2&tag=partnerscrime-20

 Lesley A. Diehl

Bio:  

Lesley retired from her life as a professor of psychology and reclaimed her country roots by moving to a small cottage in the Butternut River Valley in upstate New York.  In the winter she migrates to old Florida—cowboys, scrub palmetto, and open fields of grazing cattle, a place where spurs still jingle in the post office, and gators make golf a contact sport.  Back north, the shy ghost inhabiting the cottage serves as her writing muse.  When not writing, she gardens, cooks and renovates the 1874 cottage with the help of her husband, two cats, and, of course, Fred the ghost, who gives artistic direction to their work.

She is the author of several mystery series, all featuring country gals with attitude: the microbrewing mystery series set in the Butternut Valley of upstate New York—A Deadly Draught and Poisoned Pairings; the Big Lake Murder Mystery series—Dumpster Dying and Grilled, Chilled and Killed; and the Eve Appel Mysteries Series.  Untreedreads publishes her short stories as well as a novel length mystery, Angel Sleuth.  She invites readers to visit her on her blog and website.

Website: www.lesleydiehl.com and blog  http://anotherdraught.blogspot.com

Lesley is giving away a signed copy of A Secondhand Murder to one lucky person who leaves a comment before Saturday, November 30th. 
And the winner is Marja McGraw! Congratulations, Marja! 

Getting to know Shelly Frome

Patricia: Shelly, thank you for visiting with us today. Tell me, what are your favorite things to do when you’re not reading or writing?

Shelly: One thing I like to do is take my golden-doodle Baxter on nature walks so he can show me all the delights I’d otherwise be missing out on.

Patricia: What’s your favorite color and why?

Shelly: I’ve always been drawn to shades of sky blue, perhaps because it gives me a sense of endless possibilities close by, just around the bend and/or somewhere beyond but still within reach.

Patricia: How would you describe yourself, personality wise?

Shelly: This is probably a long answer, but since Ben Prine, the lead in my Hollywood caper Tinseltown Riff, is my stand-in, and I write to discover things that are presently percolating underneath, I could mention some of the qualities he and I share.

At the outset, I too often find myself standing back in amazement with a glint in my eye. For instance, my nephew and his wife introduced me to Howie, an old schoolmate whose mother prowls Melrose trying to shop her son on The Tonight Show as the world’s youngest oldest virgin. At the same time, countless wanna-be screenwriters, actors and actresses tell me their jobs as cabbies, hotel clerks, waitresses and what-have-you are only temporary even though they’re been at it for years. A contradiction that reminds me of the time when I was a starving actor and behaving just like Ben: an amused observer who will also jump in first chance he gets trying to make the grade.

Another quality is a kind of dreaminess, taking off into another sphere, frequently becoming lost in old movies on Turner Classics. Plus an incurable romanticism, longing for the girl next door, the white picket fence and the homey, neighborly small town goodness of It’s a Wonderful Life.

A third quality I should mention is a certain short-term intrepidness. While living in Tucson, I had a roommate who looked and sounded like a cross between Kris Kristofferson and Jeff Bridges. One day he pulled up in an MG TD he’d just bought and shouted, “Hop in, kid, we’re headin’ across the border.” Along the way he told me he was on parole for holding up the same town Billy the Kid did in New Mexico. The only difference was, he used a sawed-off shotgun. But here again, there’s a discrepancy. Ben, my character, would never just hop in willy-nilly and take of for Mexico. He gradually and unwittingly finds himself over his head. And that’s precisely why I needed to send Ben out there to see what would’ve happened had I stuck it out long-term in the entertainment business, unaware of the trouble that lies ahead.

Patricia: What are some of the favorite places you like to go?

Shelly: I guess one of the things I have in common with P.D. James is a love of settings. I don’t set out looking for provocative places, but when I find myself, say, on the moors in the western part of England or deep in the backwoods of Mississippi, a crime story begins to evolve. It’s almost as if it’s been there waiting for me to embark on a new fictional journey fraught with danger.

Patricia: If you suddenly became independently wealthy and had a million dollars at your disposal, what would you do?

Shelly: After giving a portion of it to my youngest son to establish his own theater company, I would probably use most of it for a dramatically worthwhile cause. Like helping the schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai (who survived that assassination attempt) defy the Taliban. Find ways to make education available so that disadvantaged young women in places like Pakistan can follow their dreams and achieve their true potential.

Shelly Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former professional actor and a frequent contributor of articles on all facets of creative writing. His fiction includes Twilight of the Drifter, The Twinning Murders, Lilac Moon and Sun Dance for Andy Horn. His latest is the Hollywood crime caper Tinseltown Riff. Among his works of non-fiction are the acclaimed The Actors Studio and texts on the art and craft of screenwriting and writing for the stage. He lives in Litchfield, Connecticut.

He can be reached on Facebook, Twitter @shellyFrome, Linkedin and shellyfrome.com