Category: Research

Guest Blogger ~ Susie Black

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

                                                                The Philatelist

Since the publication of my debut humorous cozy mystery, Death by Sample Size, I have been asked by many readers how events, interests, and people in my life have influenced my writing. Since my stories all take place in the Los Angeles garment center, my career as a sales exec in the ladies’ apparel industry certainly had a significant influence on my writing. Customers, colleagues, bosses, family, and friends have all played a part. But the question deserved a look beneath the surface to the collateral events, interests, and people that came into and out of my life but played a much bigger role in defining who I am and how I write than one would ever think. 

I have been an avid philatelist since I was twelve years old. What, you may ask, is a philatelist? It’s a fancy word for a stamp collector. My introduction to stamp collecting came with a birthday gift of an album filled with stamps from one of my mother’s cousins. The pictures, colors, and shapes of the stamps fascinated me, but other than licking one and attaching it to an envelope to mail, I didn’t know much else about stamps. There was a coin-and-stamp store next to the take-out pizza place my mother frequented, a few miles from our house. I took the album to that shop to see if the proprietor could teach me what stamp collecting was all about. The first time I walked into that store, a magical world opened up to me, one that would impact my life in more ways than I could ever have imagined.

 I credit my lifelong love affair with stamps and the influence it has had on how I write to Mr. Milton Albin. Generous, knowledgeable, and patient, Mr. Albin was a bespectacled, wiry, balding, wonderful middle-aged man who was the proprietor of that stamp and coin shop. Every Friday after school, I went home to collect my weekly allowance and my stamp album and then rode my bicycle to Mr. Albin’s store.

Always wearing a jeweler’s loupe and a magnifying glass on a lanyard around his neck, Mr. Albin was so willing to answer all your questions, teach you everything you wanted to learn, and exuded so much enthusiasm about his chosen field that even the most skeptical customer couldn’t help but become a fan. He was a wonderful teacher who taught me the proper way to handle the stamps and evaluate their quality. Mr. Albin suggested that for a novice collector like me, the best way to start learning about stamps was to buy canceled ones instead of more expensive mint-condition copies. Good thing too; canceled stamps were all a pre-teen’s allowance could afford. That said, my visits to Mr. Albin’s store always began at the huge wall on the right behind the entry, which was covered with envelopes containing canceled stamps clipped onto it.

After making my selections, I’d bring my envelopes to Mr. Albin to ring up. He would open the envelopes and carefully take the stamps out with a pair of tongs, and that’s when the magic began. He had a story for every stamp, and his vivid descriptions brought the stamps to life. With one commemorating the casualties of our Civil War, his eyes filled as he whispered, as though praying in a Chapel. With another commemorative that celebrated the end of slavery, his eyes lit, and he spoke with the fervor of a preacher.  No matter what the Stamp’s story was, he told it like a novel with a beginning, a middle, an ending, and a point of view. He told each story his special way, taking his time, slowly building up to the cliffhanger, and dramatically pausing right before the climax. Talk about pacing and how to build tension up to the finale. Mr. Albin had it down pat. He was my tour director on weekly adventures around the world and through every era of history, with stamps in every color and shape imaginable serving as the tickets for the ride.   

How I look at the world, and the people in it, plays a major role in the writing style I learned with help from a diminutive, unassuming, marvelous man every Friday afternoon, who led me by the hand on the continuing adventure of a lifetime through stamps. I honored Mr. Albin in the most appropriate way that an author can by including him as a character in Death by Jelly Beans, my award-winning cozy mystery.

Mr. Albin is long gone to that great celestial collectors’ corner up above, but if I piqued your interest in stamp collecting, check out the website of the American Philatelic Society to learn more about this fascinating hobby that can take you everywhere and anywhere, while never leaving your living room.

Death by Jelly Beans

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.  

Buy Links:

https://books2read.com/u/bWx9jY

Amazon.com : Death by Jelly Beans

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

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212700868-death-by-jelly-beans

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 and ardent sailor. 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:

E-mail: mysteries.authorsusieblack@gmail.com

Blue Sky: @hollysusiewrites.bsky.social

Facebook: Susie Black, author of The Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series | Facebook

Facebook: https://facebook.com/TheHollySwimsuitMysterySeries

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

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

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1/

Substack: Substack Home -Susie Black

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@author_susie_black_

X: Susie Black (@hollyswimsuit) / X

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/susieblackwritescozies

Susie Black Books – BookBub

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21437641.Susie_Black

Website: Susie Black | Substack

Finding or Making Time To Write

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

As we head into the busy time of year, meaning the holidays and shorter days, I am feeling a bit frazzled. My goal was to have one more book out before the end of the year. Preferably in November where, it being a story set around Christmas, would be in demand.

At this time I have only 13k words written in said book, and feeling the pinch to get it done having just spent 6 days on the road selling books at the State Fair, came home with a cold, then headed 2 hours away to attend an event for research that will be in my next Gabriel Hawke book, then home for two days and I’m headed to another book selling event 7 hours away for 6 days.

When am I going to find time to write?

After talking to half a dozen writers at the last event I attended, I’m glad I am a persistent person who likes to hit my goals. Those writers either can’t find the time to write, or have written but weren’t sure of the next step, or they have ideas and don’t know what to do with them.

Finding time to write: I took my laptop with me with my WIP on it. I managed to write 5000+ words on it while sitting in the Fair Building waiting for the doors to open and people to arrive every morning. I plan to take it with me when I go to the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest, and when there are enough authors in the booth, I’ll leave and go write. I don’t believe it’s about finding time to write, it’s about making time to write.

If a writer truly wants to write, they will sit down and do it, if it means getting up at 4 a.m. or staying up past midnight, if they have day jobs or a family to attend. It’s kind of like the people who say, I do like to read but I don’t have the time. I read when I’m eating my lunch and right before I go to bed. I read paperback books, so the screen doesn’t keep my brain racing. If they truly wanted to read, they would make the time to relax and read.

Those writers I spoke to who have books, poems, or stories written that don’t know what to do next, I suggested they connect with a couple of writer’s organizations that I am a part of in Oregon. I told them to reach out to me if they have any questions. There were people, writers and authors, along the way who helped me out with writing, publishing, and promoting. I’m all about paying it forward.

And the people who had ideas. I told them to get a notebook and write down their ideas for when they do have time to explore them and begin writing. I have ideas hit me a couple times a day. If it’s something that keeps coming back and won’t leave me alone then, I take it seriously and figure out how to work it into a book, or in the case of the Cuddle Farm Mysteries, a new series, I didn’t really need to start.

Which segues me into, book 2 in the Cuddle Farm Mysteries is now on pre-order with a release date of 10/10/26.

Monologued To Death

When Andi Clark and her therapy dogs are invited to audition for a play at the historic Auburn Opera House, she expects a fun evening of helping local children build confidence. Instead, she meets a director whose razor-sharp tongue leaves a trail of hurt feelings wherever she goes.

Then, during a rehearsal, the director plunges from the theater’s balcony.

While Sheriff Skala follows the evidence, Andi and her best friend, Betty, trust Cocoa’s instincts. The gentle therapy dog had witnessed someone on the theater balcony before the fatal fall and caught the scent of something behind a locked door no one else thinks to question.

Between therapy animal visits to the local retirement home and hospital, Andi, Betty, and Cocoa discover a second body, proving the killer isn’t finished yet. As the suspects multiply and the danger grows, Andi realizes someone is determined to silence anyone who gets too close to the truth.

Can Cocoa sniff out the truth before the final curtain falls on another victim?

Pre-order Link: https://books2read.com/u/49zJyJ

Finding Ideas in Odd Places

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

It always amazes me when I’m listening to something or see something, and it triggers a book idea.

I just finished book 2 in the Cuddle Farm Mysteries, Monologued to Death. It’s with my beta readers, and I’m gathering the information and doing the research for the next Spotted Pony Casino Mystery book. I’m on the fence with the title. I decided to make it a holiday-time-frame book because it will release in November. If it wasn’t a holiday book, then I’d need to wait until January to release it, or it would get lost in the holiday reads.

So, I’ve been tossing around titles with gambling terms and holiday words. Because the Spotted Pony Casino books all have gambling terms in the titles. Right now, the frontrunner is Santa’s Beard– beard being a term for someone placing a bet for someone else. The premise is I have a person who is high up in the tribe and is known as a “Santa” type of person having someone else buying up allotments on the reservation for him.

Another author I was talking to thought the title sounded like something readers couldn’t figure out. But I’m betting, pun intended, that most readers will get it by the end of the book, and I will make sure the victim is referred to by the title at the end of the book when it is all solved.

The premise for the story came about from an online class I’m taking from a Nez Perce Professor who is teaching us the history of the Nez Perce. It’s a non-credit class I sit in on every Thursday night. It started 6 weeks ago, and we have about 2 more weeks to go.

I’ve learned things I didn’t know, and I’ve had things I’ve read reinforced. I found the information about the allotments given to tribal members on the Lapwai reservation informative. Learning how only 18% of the reservation is actually owned by tribal members because when the Whites wanted more land in the reservation, they bought allotments from tribal members for far less than they were worth. Or the Indian Agents sold to the White people they liked. When the Nez Perce couldn’t get the hang of farming, they leased the land to their White neighbors who eventually purchased it. And through the generations, it isn’t always handed down to the tribal members in the family.

Learning all of this, I started researching the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, where my Spotted Pony Casino books are set. They also had allotments assigned to families through the Slater Act of 1885. They have some similar situations that have made the tribe and tribal members land holdings at 52% of the reservation land. They are better off than the Nez Perce, but there is always ongoing animosity and people who are non-tribal who want the land.

There have been a couple of other points and reactions of the person teaching the class that will end up in either more of the Spotted Pony Casino books or the Gabriel Hawke novels. Because while I enjoy writing murder mysteries, it is the characters and how they live and what they think that I am the most interested in enlightening the reader about. As the professor said at the last class, “I am 60 years old, have multiple BAs and my PHD, I still respond fearfully to law enforcement, even though I have never been in trouble with the law, but they will pull me over because they see I’m Indigenous.”

This class has been helping me learn more about how my Native American characters should feel. It is also giving me more inspiration for stories that I can use to enlighten readers about the culture.

That is why I write indigenous characters and try to shed light on the MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women). For me it is a passion to show the culture and the people who were here before anyone else and treated so poorly.

I HATE to miss deadlines.

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

I’m an Indie author. That means I make all the decisions from characters to plot to the endings of my books and when they will be published. I have a whiteboard that I use to keep track of a year’s work/publishing schedule. When I get behind or have to erase and change the dates, it makes me edgy and angry. I like to stay on schedule.

I knew the move I made in March would mess up my schedule. I made concessions for it on my whiteboard. Fast forward to June when I had expected to have a good chunk of the next Cuddle Farm book written and I was slogging in indecision.

Sorry about the reflections in the middle of the photo.

From the moment I finished book 1, Merry Merry Merry Murder, I knew what book 2 would be about. I’d run some scenes in my head and had already researched what I needed to know. I started the book, but it wasn’t flowing. Things didn’t feel right.

I took a break and went to a play with my daughter in an opera house built in 1912. I fell in love with the building and the ambiance, and then my height-conscious daughter walked along the balcony railing and was scared. The railing didn’t come to her knees, and the balcony felt as if it were pitching you forward onto the stage.

After that visit, I couldn’t stop thinking about that opera house. A story was forming in my mind and I had to go back. I bought tickets to the next play and dragged my daughter along again. The play was good, I paid more attention to the stage, the exits, and the short railing. When the play finished, we waited for everyone to leave the balcony and I did some experimenting and then we went down and I took pictures of the balcony from the stage. I wanted one for the cover the next Cuddle Farm book.

Yes, I set the book I’d been working on aside, realizing I needed more time (another book) in between book 1 and the book I’d been writing. It has to do with the discord between the main character and her sister. I wanted to show a bit of a change there before, what is now book 3, is written since it deals with the reason for the discord.

Back to my switching books. Because what had started out as book 2 was now book 3, and I had been brewing that story in my head for almost a year, I was switching to a book I hadn’t even thought of until 4 months ago. As I’d glance up at my whiteboard and see the looming date for the release of book 2 in the Cuddle Farm mysteries and I was still trying to pull all the suspects, the motive, and everything else into place so I could start writing it, my tension grew that I was going to miss the publish date and it would throw off all of the release dates through the rest of this year.

When I was complaining to a friend, she asked me, “But will it be a better book for the series if you write it now?”

My answer was yes.

“Then that’s the book you need to write and move the other publish dates out. They aren’t made in stone.”

Oh, but they are chiseled in my head. My greatest flaw is my greatest strength. I don’t like to be late for ANYTHING. It makes me nervous when I think I’m going to be late. I purposely give myself extra time for everything. And I had for book 2 in the Cuddle Farm Mysteries. But I had to wipe off my whiteboard and redesignate publish dates for this book, the next Spotted Pony Casino book, and the next Gabriel Hawke book. I wasn’t happy, and it made my stomach twist as I erased the dates and reset them.

However, this is going to be a good book and will hopefully pull more readers into this series. It also gives me more time to decide the direction I’m going with the next Spotted Pony Casino book. I’ve been back and forth on how to approach it, and hopefully by the time I am ready to start, I’ll have that story ready to rock and roll.

Guest Blogger~Kathleen Kaska

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

Murder, Hotels, and Roadside Attractions

by Kathleen Kaska

One of the great joys of writing my Sydney Lockhart Hotel Mysteries is stepping back into the early 1950s—a world balanced between postwar recovery and renewed optimism. The American dream felt tangible then, within reach. For Sydney, that dream meant breaking free from the prescribed role of wife and mother and forging her own path in a man’s world—first as a newspaper reporter, then as a private detective. The only complication was the man she met along the way. But that’s another story.

Back to the hotels.

While the murder plots are born entirely from my imagination, the settings are not. Each mystery unfolds within an actual historic hotel. For me, these grand dames are more than elegant backdrops—they have stories of their own. Their architecture, guest registers, and whispered legends carry me into a true-to-life past, lending each novel an authentic texture.

Beyond the hotels, I explore the surrounding businesses that thrived in their heyday—speakeasies, illegal casinos, and especially roadside attractions. These quirky landmarks still dot America’s highways and byways. Many sprang up between the 1940s and 1960s, when newly built interstates rerouted traffic away from small towns, threatening local economies. The solution? Create something so unforgettable that travelers would have to pull off the road. Curiosity would do the rest.

During my husband’s and my retirement adventure—our two-year, 47,000-mile journey we call “The Big Trip”—we encountered more than a few of these curiosities. In West Texas, the half-buried, graffiti-splashed cars of Cadillac Ranch rose from the prairie like a modern Stonehenge. In South Texas, we searched for the mysterious glow of the Marfa Lights. In Houston, we wandered through the aluminum-clad marvel of the Beer Can House.

Then there were the corn-themed delights: South Dakota’s Corn Palace; Iowa’s Field of Dreams baseball field carved from a cornfield (I entered—and thankfully found my way out); and the humble memorial marking Buddy Holly’s crash site outside Clear Lake, Iowa, hidden among rustling stalks. It was too much fun not to weave these Americana treasures into my stories.

corn Field of Dreams

In Murder at the Arlington, set at the historic Arlington Hotel and Spa, Bathhouse Row plays a key role. I also mention the Arkansas Alligator Farm & Petting Zoo and Tiny Town, both of which still delight visitors today.

In Murder at the Galvez, Sydney finds herself stranded on Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pierwhen a blinding fog rolls in—and a bullet slices through the mist.

For Murder at the Menger, research took me deep into Louisiana’s swamps with Cajun Encounters Tour Company at Honey Island Swamp, home to the legendary Whiskey Tree and the ghostly moonshiner said to guard it still.

But my favorite roadside attraction lies just outside New Braunfels, Texas: Aquarena Springs. My parents took my sisters and me there when I was young. The crystal-clear lake featured glass-bottom boats and the world’s only submarine theater, where aquamaids—women dressed as mermaids—performed underwater ballet. There was even an underwater wedding, with lead weights sewn into the bride’s gown to keep it from drifting upward.

In Murder at the Faust, Sydney tracks suspects to Aquarena Springs, where an aquamaid makes a startling discovery that helps her solve the case.

Aquarena Springs closed in 1996 and is now the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment—but in the 1950s, it was pure magic. And as any mystery writer knows, magic often hides something darker beneath the surface.

Welcome to Sydney’s world. Check in. Settle in. And watch closely as Sydney brings every secret to light.

Giveaway

Kathleen is giving away an autographed copy of Murder at the Faust to the person who can tell her where this photo was taken.

Murder at the Faust

Welcome to the historic Faust Hotel, where the year is 1953, the carpet is plush, and the crime scenes are unfortunately plentiful. A bloody hotel room, a dead body on the bank of the Guadalupe River, and a suspiciously well-informed police chief land Sydney in the interrogation hot seat.

With Dixon still recovering from a gunshot wound, help arrives—whether Sydney wants it or not—in the form of plucky Lydia LaBeau and the irrepressible Cousin Ruth Echland. Lydia promptly delves into birdwatching escapades with a mysterious new friend, while Ruth, disguised as a Miss Texas contestant, seems more focused on evening gowns than evidence.

Then another dead body turns up in Sydney’s apartment. Lydia disappears. And the case takes a turn for the bizarre with the arrival of a mermaid and a Bible-thumping zealot—just the sort of chaos Sydney has come to expect.

In a whirlwind of duplicity, deception, and pageant drama, one question looms:
Will the real Sydney Lockhart please stand up?

Look for Murder at the Faust in bookstores and on Amazon on September 8, 2026.

Buy Links:

Pre-order today: https://anamcara-press.com/product/murder-at-the-faust/

http://www.kathleenkaska.com

Kathleen Kaska writes the award-winning Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series, the Kate Caraway Animal-Rights Mystery Series, and the Mystery Trivia series, which includes The Sherlock Holmes Quiz Book, published by Lyons Press. Her Holmes short story, “The Adventure at Old Basingstoke,” appears in Sherlock Holmes of BAKING Street, a Belanger Books anthology. She founded The Dogs in the Nighttime Sherlock Holmes Society, a scion of The Baker Street Irregulars. Her latest Sydney Lockhart mystery, Murder at the Pontchartrain, winner of the PenCraft Award for best mystery series, is set in New Orleans at the Pontchartrain Hotel. Kathleen is the winner of the Amity Literary Award for her novel, Death Without Dignity, scheduled for release in January 2027. A Texan at heart, she remains a Texan, even though she now lives in a small coastal town in the Pacific Northwest, where it’s cooler, and there is no traffic. 

Social Media Links

http://www.facebook.com/kathleenkaska

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https://www.amazon.com/author/www.kathleenkaska.com