Mystery of the Month: The Silver Sleigh

Lost and found.

A white rescue collie named Sparkle escapes during an unscheduled stop at the deserted River Rose Collie Kennels, former home of the missing Rosalyn Everett...

A blue merle collie appears alongside the house which is strange as all of the River Rose collies were supposed to have been rescued and in new homes...

And during another unscheduled stop, Jennet buys an antique silver sleigh, little dreaming that she has stepped into a dangerous new mystery that may well be her last.

BUY LINKS FOR THE SILVER SLEIGH

Available at www.wings-press.com (paperback editions only)

Available at www.amazon.com

Available at www.barnesandnoble.com

Dorothy Bodoin is a life-long resident of Michigan except for a two-year stay in southern Italy where she worked as a secretary for Chrysler Missile Corporation.  She obtained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and had a long career teaching high school English in Romeo and Madison Heights, Michigan.

She wrote her first full-length novel, a science-fiction adventure story, when she was fifteen, on her Royal Portable typewriter.  Although she wrote short stories, it wasn’t until 1976 that she wrote her second novel, a western Gothic romance, Treasure at Trail’s End, published by Wings ePress.

After leaving education to write full time, she wrote six novels of romantic suspense and started her Foxglove Corners cozy mystery series with Darkness at Foxglove Corners.  The Silver Sleigh, released on August 1^st, 2015, is #19 in the series.

She is currently at work on #20, The Stone Collie.

Dorothy enjoys reading, old movies, and spending time with her collie, Wolf Manor Kinder Brightstar who serves as inspiration for the dogs in her books.

Her website is www.dorothybodoin.com and her e-mail Endora0922@gmail.com

 

Hunting for Gems

Our Guide 

Writing novels is like hunting for gems.

Several years ago, my mother and I went gem hunting in North Carolina two years in a row. The first year, we went to Hiddenite, one of those if-you-blink-you-miss-it towns, to sluice and pan for a variety of gems and to dig for emeralds. The mine was located out in the boonies, even more remote than the town itself. As I drove down the bumpy dirt road to get to the office, I passed chickens, a couple of stray dogs and a rooster.

When I finally spotted the long, covered sluice line surrounded by stacks of buckets filled with unprocessed, virgin ore, I was excited about what we might find. We sat at the sluice line for hours, sifting through the dirt and, not having any luck, decided we would try our hand at digging for emeralds. 

It was an incredibly hot day in August; sweat poured off of us as we trudged up hills, carrying heavy shovels and buckets. Again, no luck. We ended up sitting in the creek, panning for gems, letting the cool water wash over us. We didn’t find any “quality” gems there either but we learned a lot on that trip and had a lot of fun.

Our next trip, the following May, was to Franklin, which is advertised as the “Gem Capital of the World.” I’d done my homework and I was determined that, this time, we would find what we were looking for. We went to several different mines in search of star sapphires (referred to as "North Carolina rubies") but, after three days, we still hadn’t found any of the precious gems and we were beginning to get discouraged.

Our last day there, it rained on and off and was damp and chilly. We sat at the sluice line, shivering, with our hands submerged in the cold, running water, rinsing off and inspecting hundreds of rocks. By the end of the day, we had each found some stones, which we thought were promising, but we weren’t certain that they’d amount to anything. So, on our way out of town the next morning, we stopped at a local gemologist’s shop. Our suspicions were confirmed; we’d each found stones that we would later have cut and polished to produce beautiful, star sapphire rings!

Like gem hunters, we writers often have to sort through a lot of ideas, discarding most of them, before finding one that is worth keeping and developing into a novel but, as we write our story and, especially, when we finish it, we know that it was well worth it. And then, we do it again!

It's the little things

In writing, as in life, it's often the little things that mean the most. When you're writing a series, it can be difficult to keep track of all the details you’ve already included in previous books. It's important to get "the little things" right because it can be disconcerting to readers to find that you've made a mistake on even a minor detail. We want our readers to trust us so we need to make sure we "get it right." So how do writers do it?

I can only speak for myself. Let me first say that I am a list maker. I’m a firm believer in writing down everything that I need to remember as opposed to storing it loosely in my head. I detest the “What is it I’m forgetting?” feeling and I try to avoid it at all costs. So, I make lists for everything! Groceries and miscellaneous items that I need to buy, appointments, errands, phone calls I want to return; you name it, I write it down.

As I began to write my second novel, I found myself having to constantly go back into my first book to check on various details. It was beginning to get on my nerves and I realized what the problem was; I needed a plan, a list. So, I developed Characters and Chronology, an outline of “facts” that I needed to remember. 

I started with my main character, Ann, and listed her physical description, her age and important events in her life which I had mentioned in Mixed Messages. I then went on do the same with each character. Eventually, I expanded the outline to include the “new” characters in my second novel, Unfinished Business. As I wrote Desperate Deeds and Mistaken Identity, I added that information to my list too. 

Now, as I work on plotting the fifth novel for my Malone Mystery series, I have all of the "facts" I need to create my chapter by chapter outline and then to proceed to write the book, which makes me very glad that I took the time to jot everything down. 

Are you a list maker?