Category: humorous mystery

Guest Blogger ~ Kris Bock

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

Kris Bock on Two Very Different Heroines in her Mystery Series

My two mystery series have first-person (past tense) narrators, so I’m writing from their close point of view and the reader gets their thoughts. A novel, being fiction, doesn’t merely copy people from real life, of course. Still, an author might use bits and pieces of several people to create some characters, and completely make up others. We might also use personal experience – a great way to develop characters who feel authentic!

In the Accidental Detective humorous mystery series, a witty journalist solves mysteries in Arizona and tackles the challenges of turning fifty. I wrote it as I was facing fifty, and Kate has some of the same concerns, such as perimenopause and aging parents. I drew on my experience with chronic back pain, which sometimes throws off my walking stride, in order to write about Kate’s bombing injury and use of a cane.

Those things bring Kate to life, but she’s not me. I’ve been a full-time freelance writer for nearly 30 years, but I’m definitely not a war correspondent. Kate is me if I’d gone into journalism instead of other forms of writing – and if I was much more outgoing and fearless.

My new mystery series, The Reluctantly Psychic Mysteries, star Petra, who can touch an object and sense the emotions people have left behind. To create her character, I tried to imagine what it would be like growing up with a “gift” like hers. She avoids friendships so she won’t have to explain her psychic power or feel like she’s spying on people. Because she’s such a loner, she has many pets. She went into geology because it typically doesn’t force her to handle objects that have emotional residue from prior handling.

In some ways, she’s less me. She’s younger than I am, at thirty. I have no psychic powers. But I drew on the more anxious, cautious parts of myself in creating her, and used plenty of imagination to explore what it might be like to grow up with a challenging psychic power.

Extrovert or Introvert

Because these two characters are so different, they investigate mysteries in very different ways. Professional journalist Kate is used to interviewing people. She’s had practice seeking out the truth. People ask for her help, and she craves the adventure.

Loner Petra has childhood trauma due to neglect, abandonment, and betrayal from both family and friends. She tries to understand people’s behavior so she can protect herself. Her caution and fear mean she overanalyzes everything, but that works pretty well for an amateur detective.

Readers seem to like both characters. People think Kate is fun. They enjoy her eccentric sidekicks, including her sister, her father, and a couple of her father’s wacky friends. Many people would like to be like Kate – or they identify with her attempts to start over in midlife. Readers have said:

“I so related to Kate and her struggles to get back to her regular life. Can’t wait for the next book in this series!”

“A fifty-year-old who is wondering what she wants to do when she grows up? That’s more like it! Bock’s story offers proof positive that no one outgrows the need for more maturity and self-discovery.”

“I loved her smart world traveler, foreign war correspondent heroine. I loved reading a story where the heroine is so fascinating, as fascinating to me as the mystery.”

Something Shady at Sunshine Haven (the Accidental Detective book 1) is FREE this month at all E-book retailers!

From Isolation to Friendship

Most people don’t want to be Petra, but they sympathize with her (and often identify with her caution and anxiety). Book reviews have said:

“What truly resonated with me was Petra’s emotional journey. Her anxiety about being discovered, her cautious approach to forming friendships, and her affection for her pets (the cats! the ferrets! my heart!) made her character incredibly relatable. I found myself laughing, gasping, and perhaps shedding a tear or two.”

“What wrecked me emotionally was Petra’s struggle with trust. She’s spent her life pushing people away to protect herself, but now she has to rely on others to solve this murder. That slow, painful opening-up? The tentative friendships? I felt every second of it… Petra’s journey is one I won’t forget.”

“Petra is such a compelling lead. Her psychometry isn’t just a plot device—it’s a curse that’s shaped her entire life… And her journey from isolation to finally letting people in? Perfection.”

I’m sure most readers don’t have psychic powers. (If you do, please tell me all about it!) So why do people respond so much to Petra’s isolation? Maybe because we can feel isolated for so many reasons: neurodiversity, gender nonconformity, being artist types in a corporate world, feeling out of tune with our community’s or country’s politics … Who among us feels “normal”?

Petra masks her true self most of the time, for her safety, but she craves connections with people who understand and accept her. Don’t we all feel that way some (or much, or all) of the time?

Maybe Kate and Petra represent reasons readers turn to books: We want to identify with characters and believe they would like us too, or we want to feel what it would be like to be entirely different – or sometimes a bit of both.

A Stone Cold Murder: The Reluctant Psychic Murder Mystery book 1: Petra Cloch has the gift, or curse, of psychometry – she can sense the emotions people had while wearing or using objects. Now she’s starting a new job at a quirky private museum in smalltown New Mexico. When she picks up a rock in her new office, she feels flashes of rage, fear and death. Everyone says her predecessor died in a car crash, but what if he was murdered? If he died because of the job, she could be next.

Purchase link: https://tulepublishing.com/series/reluctantly-psychic-murder-mystery/

Readers say:

“[A Stone Cold Murder] is both heartwarming and suspenseful. For those who appreciate mysteries that offer depth, a distinctive supernatural element, and a protagonist to cherish, A Stone Cold Murder is an essential read.”

“The murder mystery is fantastic. The idea that a museum curator was killed with a rock (how chillingly ironic) and that Petra is the only one who knows? Genius. And the small-town setting? So atmospheric. The Banditt Museum feels like a character itself, full of hidden corners and whispered history.”

Kris Bock writes mystery, suspense, and romance, often with Southwestern landscapes. The Accidental Detective humorous mystery series starts with Something Shady at Sunshine Haven, which is FREE this month at all E-book retailers!

Sign up for the Kris Bock newsletter and get an Accidental Detective short story, a Reluctantly Psychic short story, and other freebies. Then every two weeks, you’ll get fun content about pets, announcements of new books, sales, and more.

Kris’s romantic suspense novels include stories of treasure hunting, archaeology, and intrigue. Readers have called these novels “Smart romance with an Indiana Jones feel.”

As for Kris’s romance, the Furrever Friends Sweet Romance series features the employees and customers at a cat café. Watch as they fall in love with each other and shelter cats. Start the series for free at all e-book retailers!

In the Accidental Billionaire Cowboys series, a Texas ranching family wins a fortune in the lottery. Who wouldn’t want to be a billionaire? Turns out winning the lottery causes as many problems as it solves.

Kris also writes a series with her brother, scriptwriter Douglas J Eboch, who wrote the original screenplay for the movie Sweet Home Alabama. The Felony Melanie series follows the crazy antics of Melanie, Jake, and their friends a decade before the events of the movie. Find the books at all E-book retailers.

Find Kris:

Website

Kris Bock newsletter signup

GoodReads Author Page

BookBub

BlueSky

Amazon US page or Amazon UK page

Guest Blogger ~ Lois Winston

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

By Lois Winston

First, a little literary history regarding the expression, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” It’s been around for a long time. In 1897 Mark Twain published the travel book Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Chapter Fifteenth included the epigraph, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. — Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.”

However, Twain wasn’t the first to come up with some version of the saying. Seventy-four years earlier, Lord Byron had Don Juan opine, “’Tis strange — but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction; if it could be told, How much would novels gain by the exchange!”

Why am I telling you this? It’s because I’m not only a news junkie, but I’m also a diehard eavesdropper. I developed that skill at a very young age, learning all sorts of interesting stories while listening from behind closed doors. The adults in my life thought I was off playing with my dolls or watching cartoons, but I quickly realized that far more interesting tales were being told around my grandmother’s kitchen table. I became Harriet the Spy, well before Louise Fitzhugh ever dreamed up Harriet.

My grandmother, aunt, and great-aunts loved to gossip. Consequently, I learned some fascinating stories about my relatives and their private lives. Little did I know at the time that much of what I overheard would eventually wind up decades later as inspiration for characters and plots when I first got the itch to write a novel.

Much of what I heard involved my grandfather, who had a decades-long career in law enforcement during the heyday of organized crime in the New York metropolitan area. By the time I came along, he’d risen to captain of a major metropolitan police force. However, back in the day, he was personally responsible for the apprehension of many mobsters. But get this: one of his brothers was a bootlegger! And one of his wife’s brothers was romantically involved with a woman whose family was in the Mafia! I wound up going to school with two of her nieces. Mind-boggling, right?

Is it any wonder Anastasia Pollack, my Jersey Girl reluctant amateur sleuth so often finds herself tangling with Mafia henchmen?

To date, I’ve published twenty-three novels and five novellas. The plots and subplots for all have been drawn from events I’ve either observed, overheard, or read about—going all the way back to those early childhood days of listening with my ear pressed up to the kitchen door.

However, in Seams Like the Perfect Crime, the fourteenth and most recent book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, I didn’t draw on memories of conversations from my childhood. Instead, I looked no further than across the street from a former house my husband and I bought in 1998.

Over the years, I’ve had some very strange neighbors. Many of them have made their way into my books, but the couple who lived in the house across the street from us back then tops the Strange Neighbors List.

In Seams Like the Perfect Crime, readers meet the very odd Barry Sumner, a half-naked man who spends hours each day mowing his postage stamp-sized yard of weed-infested packed dirt. When the mower runs out of gas, Barry settles onto the top step of his porch, downs a six-pack or two, and passes out. Every day, year round, weather permitting.

And here’s where truth being stranger than fiction comes into play. The characters of Barry Sumner and his wife are based on the neighbors who lived across the street from my husband and me twenty-seven years ago, including the same strange mowing obsession and beer guzzling habit, as well as his wife’s suspicions regarding some hanky-panky. Luckily, this former neighbor didn’t meet the same fate that awaits Barry Sumner in Seams Like the Perfect Crime.

Seams Like the Perfect Crime

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 14

When staffing shortages continue to hamper the Union County homicide squad, Detective Sam Spader once again turns to his secret weapon, reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. How can she and husband Zack Barnes refuse when the victim is their new neighbor?

Revolutionary War reenactor Barry Sumner had the odd habit of spending hours mowing a small patch of packed dirt and weeds until his mower ran out of gas. He’d then guzzle beer on his front porch until he passed out. That’s where Anastasia’s son Nick discovers his body three days after the victim and his family moved into the newly built mini-McMansion across the street.

After a melee breaks out at the viewing, Spader zeroes in on the widow as his prime suspect. However, Anastasia has her doubts. There are other possible suspects, including a woman who’d had an affair with the victim, his ex-wife, the man overseeing the widow’s trust fund, a drug dealer, and the reenactors who were blackmailing the widow and victim.

When another reenactor is murdered, Spader suspects they’re dealing with a serial killer, but Anastasia wonders if the killer is attempting to misdirect the investigation. As she narrows down the suspects, will she jeopardize her own life to learn the truth?

​Craft projects included.

Buy Links

Amazon: https://amzn.to/49KvjaG

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/seams-like-the-perfect-crime

Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/seams-like-the-perfect-crime-lois-winston/1146583329?ean=2940184679983

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/seams-like-the-perfect-crime/id6738502932

Books2Read Universal Link to Other Sites: https://books2read.com/u/3LXa1e

USA Today and Amazon bestselling author Lois Winston began her award-winning writing career with Talk Gertie to Me, a humorous fish-out-of-water novel about a small-town girl going off to the big city and the mother determined to bring her home to marry the boy next door. That was followed by the romantic suspense Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception.

Then Lois’s writing segued unexpectedly into the world of humorous amateur sleuth mysteries, thanks to a conversation her agent had with an editor looking for craft-themed mysteries. In her day job, Lois was an award-winning craft and needlework designer, and although she’d never written a mystery—or had even thought about writing a mystery—her agent decided she was the perfect person to pen a series for this editor.

Thus, was born the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, which Kirkus Reviews dubbed “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” The series now includes fourteen novels and three novellas. Lois also writes the Empty Nest Mysteries and has written several standalone mystery novellas. Other publishing credits include romance, chick lit, and romantic suspense novels, a series of romance short stories, a children’s chapter book, and a nonfiction book on writing, inspired by her twelve years working as an associate at a literary agency.

Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can find links for her other social media sites and sign up for her newsletter to receive a free download of an Anastasia Pollack Mini-Mystery.

Website: http://www.loiswinston.com

Newsletter sign-up: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/dc9t0bjl00

Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com

Booklover’s Bench: https://bookloversbench.com

The Stiletto Gang: https://www.thestilettogang.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/722763.Lois_Winston

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lois-winston

Guest Blogger ~ C.B. Wilson

~ patyjag ~ 1 Comment

The Land of Aloha

By C.B. Wilson

Aloha! From savoring high tea at the Moana Surf to relaxing on Turtle Beach near Haleiwa, Hawaii has always been my happy place. In fact, I am lucky to admit that my family lives on Oahu and I do get to “go home to Hawaii” for the holidays.

The island’s concept of Ohana (meaning family) inspired my newest novel, Puppied to Death. In this ninth installment of the Barkview Mysteries, protagonist Cat Wright Hawl travels from Barkview, America’s dog-friendliest city, to Hawaii. There, she must protect her half-sister from a murderer while reconciling with her late father’s absence and navigating her complex relationship with her mother. Oh, and as the title suggests, there are puppies!

No Hawaiian adventure is complete without immersing oneself in the island’s distinctive culture. When the mystery’s clues revolve around a traditional Chinese Mahjong game, Cat finds herself depending on the dubious detective abilities of the Miss Marple Mahjong Mamas and their distinctive perspective on Chinese immigration. (Take a peek at the below clue. Can you solve the puzzle?)

Yes, I do play Mahjong. Creating the clues required a deep dive into Mahjong’s history and the true meaning of the tiles. I have a new appreciation for winds and dragons.

When I wrote Puppied to Death, I wanted the story to be more than a fun visit to Hawaii. My consultations with Chinatown’s TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) practitioners gave me a wonderful insight into the value of lā’au lapa’au (herbal remedies) that I use today. A word of advice when meeting the practitioner for the first time: don’t ask them what Hawaiian plants can kill someone. I swear a Chinatown police officer followed me the entire day.

I also spent time at the Hamilton Library located at the University of Hawaii Manoa. The information in the China Collection is fantastic. It has inspired me to write another Chinese history-based novel. (More to come on that.) While digging through immigration documents and diaries, I learned that the challenges faced by early 20th-century female immigrants parallelled many struggles of contemporary women raising children, genuinely adding a timelessness to Cat’s underlying problem and the conflict between her and the all-knowing Chinese matriarch in the story. 

When a tea sommelier is found murdered, an ancient Chinese secret dating back to the Qiang Dynasty falls under threat, and a French Bulldog, a Beagle, and a cat hold the answer to the mystery; only one intrepid sleuth has the ability to cut through the confusion and capture the true culprit.

I hope you enjoy your island journey. For those returning, prepare for a nostalgic trip to your beloved landmarks across Waikiki, Chinatown, and the North Shore. For first-time visitors, a heartfelt Aloha e komo mai—welcome to paradise.

A Murder, an Ancient Secret, and a Puppy You Can’t Help but Love

A desperate call from her sister sends investigative reporter Cat Hawl on a rescue mission to Hawaii. But when she arrives, it’s more than she bargained for. Not only is a tea sommelier found dead, but a mischievous puppy has turned the crime scene into a dog’s breakfast. And to top it off, Cat’s sister, Lani, has gone missing. Is she a witness or on the run?

Join Cat on her quirky, whirlwind adventure, where a trail of tea leaves leads her through a mystery that’s as puzzling as a puppy’s antics. Cozy mystery lovers will find themselves charmed and intrigued at every twist and turn!

Universal link: https://mybook.to/PuppiedtoDeath

Award-winning author C.B. Wilson’s love of writing was spurred by an early childhood encounter with a Nancy Drew book where she wrote what she felt was a better ending.

An animal lover, the Barkview Mysteries combine C. B.’s love of mysteries and dogs. The current 10 book series follows Cat Wright, a feline-loving, former investigative reporter’s, journey to find the right dog for her. C.B.’s motivation to grow this popular series is a result of her belief that every animal deserves a forever home. You will likely find adoptable dogs at her appearances.

Join C.B. in Barkview and help Cat decide if there is a perfect dog for our resident cat lover. 

Social Media:

https://www.facebook.com/cbwilsonauthor

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/137800079

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/c-b-wilson

Instagram: www.instagram.com@cbwilsonauthor

Linktree. https://linktr.ee/cbwilsonauthor

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1HfOVqN7aBccTW70_wlL0w

tikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@author.cb.wilson

Guest Blogger ~ Susie Black

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

How I Develop My Characters and Plan My Mysteries

By nature, I am a people person, so, developing characters is where I begin when planning a story. Once the characters are created, the plot is built around them, not the reverse. So, how do I develop my characters? I have kept a daily journal chronicling all the interesting, difficult, and oddball people I have encountered as well as the crazy situations I’ve gotten myself into and out of during my apparel sales career.  The journal entries are the foundation of my mysteries. All my characters are based on people I have encountered in my career as a ladies’ swimwear sales exec. I take the characteristics, quirks, traits, and personalities of these real people as the foundation and then build upon them to create the cast members I want in the tale. Basing my characters on people I know has given my cast a ring of authenticity and that believability has translated into memorable characters readers root for or boo at, but either way, invest in.

To illustrate my character development technique, I’ll detail how I created Holly Schlivnik, the protagonist of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series. Holly Schlivnik is based on me. She is the me I always wanted to be and more. She is fearless, loyal to a fault, and smart. 

Holly is infused with me in every respect- from her physical description to her personality to her life experiences, career, family, friends, the kind of car she drives, and where she lives.

Physical Description:

Holly is slim as I am and is my height- 4 feet 8 inches to be exact. I have made the consequences of her height lack of it, a key component of the messes she gets herself into and the adjustments she’s had to make in her everyday life to accommodate her height. These situations add to her personality and turn into some of the funniest schticks of the series. She has brown eyes and short brown hair like mine.

Personality:

Like me, she is funny, sarcastic, stubborn, wise-cracking, and irreverent.

Idiosyncrasies, and inherited traits:

I inherited a fear of death from my maternal grandmother that we both overcompensated with the nervous habit of laughing, often inappropriately. I incorporated this idiosyncrasy into Holly’s personality and made it one of the main characteristics that identify her. I also inherited my grandmother’s rapier wit and a love of perfume and jewelry. I blended these into Holly’s personality as well.

Family: My dad was a ladies’ apparel manufacturer’s representative and I started my career working for him and so is Holly’s dad. I got into the rag biz by accident and so did Holly.  Holly also started her apparel career working for her father. My parents were complete opposites who had a very successful marriage and so are Holly’s. Holly’s parents, bigger-than-life maternal grandmother, and siblings were all based on my family. 

Religion: Like me, Holly is Jewish and the traditions and history are woven throughout the series and add to the richness and authenticity of each story.

Love Life: While I lived in the South, I did have two men in my life one of who I have introduced into Holly’s life.  Unlike Holly, I have never had a personal relationship with a police detective.

Pets: Sigmund Freud, Holly’s wildly popular standard poodle/psychiatrist and amateur sleuth, is based on the personalities of my own two springer spaniels. While he can’t talk, like my two hounds, Siggie gets his point across. He shakes his head yes and no, rolls his eyes, barks if he disagrees with Holly, and has been known to pull her in the opposite direction if he doesn’t think Holly is going the right way.

Health and habits: To keep my girlish figure, I am a dedicated walker I walk three miles every day- and have made Holly’s daily walks with Sigmund to the Washington Street Pier an important part of her routine. “Pop,” the senior citizen fisherman she has befriended and shares morning coffee with on the pier has helped her solve several murders.

Hobbies: I have been an avid stamp collector since my pre-teen years. In book number six, which was recently released, it is revealed that Holly is a stamp collector. She encounters someone tangentially involved in a murder while at her stamp dealer’s store.

Car: I have owned convertible cars throughout my driving career. I incorporated my love of convertibles into my stories by having Holly drive a bubblegum pink classic convertible passed down to her by her mother. 

Home: I lived on a houseboat in Marina del Rey for ten years. I loved living on the water in a houseboat and amalgamated that into the series by having Holly live on a houseboat in Marina del Rey, California. I have used Holly’s houseboat and marina locale as an integral part of Holly’s personality as well as the site of her adventures and misadventures as an amateur sleuth. 

Age: Holly is on the shady side of her twenties when she is promoted from a sales rep to a management position. This is the same age when I made the leap from sales rep to executive management.

Friends and colleagues:  Like me, Holly is in a traditionally male-dominated industry and is one of the very few females in a management position. I surrounded her with a group of female professional colleagues and friends who supported her and mentored her like the ones I was fortunate enough to have had to do the same for me. The Yentas are based on that group of wonderful women.

Career:

Holly is the same successful ladies’ swimwear sales exec based in the Los Angeles apparel center as me. 

Employment: Ditzy Swimwear and Mermaid Swimwear are based on two swimwear companies I worked for.

I have created a fictionalized me that has been fun to bring to life. Fortunately, unlike Holly Schlivnik, I have never discovered a murdered person or hunted down a killer…at least, not yet!

Death by Jelly Beans

“Brings a whole new meaning to the rabbit died.”

Mermaid Swimwear President Holly Schlivnik discovers the Bainbridge Department Store Easter Bunny slumped over dead and obnoxious swimwear buyer Sue Ellen Magee is arrested for the crime. Despite her differences with the nasty buyer, Holly is convinced the Queen of Mean didn’t do it. The wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to nail the real killer. But the trail has more twists than a pretzel and more turns than a rollercoaster. And nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Jelly-Beans-Swimsuit-Mystery/dp/B0D88FNBSS

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-by-jelly-beans-susie-black/1145804565?ean=2940186124580

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212700868-death-by-jelly-beans?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=PWl56Hmfkz&rank=1

https://www.bookbub.com/books/death-by-jelly-beans-holly-swimsuit-mystery-book-5-by-susie-black

Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.

She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.

Looking for more? Contact Susie at:

Website: www.authorsusieblack.com

E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com

Book Bub: www.bookbub.com/authors/susie-black

Facebook:    https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries

Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=susieblack&qid=MDCXK0T4FC

Instagram:   Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) • Instagram photos and videos

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorsusieblack-61941011

Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1_saved/

Twitter:    http://twitter.com/@hollyswimsuit

Guest Blogger ~ Lois Winston

~ patyjag ~ 29 Comments

The Importance of Character Arcs

Every book needs two elements—a plot and characters. Most writers understand that their story is comprised of a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is about the Call to Action or what makes the protagonist get involved in the story’s events. In the case of mysteries, this is a murder or another crime. The middle details the steps the protagonist takes on her way to figuring out whodunit. The end is all about how the protagonist solved the crime—the finale, where the perpetrator is caught, and the denouement, where all the various strands of the story are satisfactorily explained.

What many newer authors don’t understand, though, is that the characters in a book must also have their own arcs. This is especially true in series where reader follows various characters through the course of many books. Character growth is essential. No character should be in the same emotional and mental place at the start of either a single title book or a series. When that happens in a series, the author is merely writing the same book over and over with only the names, places, and crimes changing in each subsequent story.

All recurring characters in a series need arcs, not just the protagonist. However, the arc doesn’t have to be in the reader’s face. An arc can be subtle and develop over time as the series progresses.

In Sorry, Knot Sorry, the recently released thirteenth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, Anastasia’s relationship with Detective Sam Spader takes a major turn. Detective Spader was first introduced in Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, the third book in the series, when he suspected Anastasia’s communist mother-in-law Lucille of murdering her roommate at a rehabilitation center.

Readers of the series know there’s no love lost between Anastasia and Lucille. However, although Lucille has many flaws, Anastasia knows she’s all bark and no bite. So she sets out to find the real killer. Spader has continued to pop up in subsequent books in the series, and his relationship with Anastasia has grown from adversarial to one of grudging respect.

In this latest book, a man is gunned down in front of Anastasia’s home. There is little in the way of clues and no witnesses. The sheriff’s office is short-staffed due to vacations and a summer flu bug that has hit many county employees. Plus, there’s no money left in the annual budget to hire more officers. The detective admits he needs Anastasia’s help. He knows she has a way of seeing things that others often miss.

Over the course of eleven books, Spader has grown. He’s not the only one. The story arcs of many of the characters in the series have continued to develop. Some character growth has been for the better, some for the worse. But everyone changes in some way, making for a series that continues to grow beyond just the number of books.

Sorry, Knot Sorry

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 13

Magazine crafts editor Anastasia Pollack may finally be able to pay off the remaining debt she found herself saddled with when her duplicitous first husband dropped dead in a Las Vegas casino. But as Anastasia has discovered, nothing in her life is ever straightforward. Strings are always attached. Thanks to the success of an unauthorized true crime podcast, a television production company wants to option her life—warts and all—as a reluctant amateur sleuth.

Is such exposure worth a clean financial slate? Anastasia isn’t sure, but at the same time, rumors are flying about layoffs at the office. Whether she wants national exposure or not, Anastasia may be forced to sign on the dotted line to keep from standing in the unemployment line. But the dead bodies keep coming, and they’re not in the script.

Craft tips included.

Preorder Buy Links (releasing 6/4/24)

Amazon https://amzn.to/4a8JyVJ

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/sorry-knot-sorry

Nook https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sorry-knot-sorry-lois-winston/1145047275?ean=2940186076698

Apple Books https://books.apple.com/us/book/sorry-knot-sorry/id6479363569

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.