Creative Alchemy

Do you yearn for a life of freedom?

Minnie Crockwell is a free spirit. She travels the USA in her RV, with a very polite ghost named Ben in tow, exploring the country and, of course, solving crime. The life of a digital nomad has occasionally called to me, but I think I'm better off hearing about others' adventures. To me it seems that the Will Travel for Trouble mysteries are the perfect confluence of living an adventurous life vicariously through literature.

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week's mystery author

Minnie Crockwell has traveled and lived in too many styles of RVs to remember. Without a land yacht at present, she lives in a sticks and bricks home in Virginia and wonders what her next RV purchase will be. She’s shopping!

Minnie also writes time travel romance novels as Bess McBride.

Learn more about Minnie/Bess and all her books at BessMcBride.com.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Excerpt from Trouble at Happy Trails

I pulled into the campground slowly, never quite sure what dangers lurked in the form of poles, signs, small children, errant tree limbs and one-way roads.

I paused for a moment and surveyed what would be my new domain for the next week or so. The office was clearly visible several hundred feet away, and marked helpfully with a sign which read "Office." Always a good start to a campground stay!

While no longer a complete novice driver of a 37-foot recreational vehicle, I didn't allow myself to relax my vigilance either. I drew my eyebrows and surveyed the approach to the office. A hard sharp 30-degree angle turn came between me, my rig and the office.

I pulled the wheel hard to the right, made the turn and rolled to a stop in front of the small one-story, nondescript beige building. Turning off the engine and setting the brake, I made my way to the door on the passenger side of the RV and clambered down the steps with a groan. Driving for 8 hours straight from the Oregon coast with only two rest stops was not the ideal RV traveling day, but I had been determined to reach my reserved spot at...

Sometimes when bad things happen it's for the best.

I'm not talking about murder! For the fictional character Chelsea Thomas being left at the alter spins her life in a direction that she likely didn't anticipate.

I haven't had a husband and wife co-writing team on the podcast before so I was very excited to talk to one half of the team, Chelsea, who shares a name with her protagonist. Chelsea and her husband Matthew have co-authored ten Apple Orchard mysteries, with #11, Dropping Like Pies, arriving February 23, 2021.

If you're looking for sweet (see what I did there?), fun, light mysteries to chase away the winter blues, look no further.

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week's mystery author

Chelsea Thomas is the married writing team of Chelsea and Matthew Thomas. Chelsea and Matthew met at Duke University and they currently live in the Hudson Valley, NY.

You’ll love Chelsea’s mysteries because everyone loves  cozies with delicious food and smart female sleuths.

To learn more about Chelsea and all her books visit ChelseaThomasAuthor.com

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Excerpt from Apple Die

Left at the altar. What a cliché. I hadn’t thought my fiancé, Mike, capable of such an unoriginal break-up. But there we were, at the altar, and he kept checking the exits like he was about to rob a bank.

“Are you OK?” I whispered as the priest said some stuff in Latin.

Mike wiped sweat off his forehead. “I’m fine.”

“You’re sweating a lot.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Before I could get further confirmation, the priest joined Mike’s sweaty hands with my hands, and he proceeded with the vows. “Do you, Chelsea Rae Thomas, take Michael Martin Gherkin as your husband, until death do you part?”

“I do.” Easy answer, or so I thought.

The priest turned to Mike.

If you're yearning to travel, the Beatrice Stubbs series will satisfy.

Jill Marsh's Detective Inspector Beatrice Stubbs is fighting battles with crime, as well as with her own mind. Beatrice has bipolar disorder and that has an effect on her work. Jill shares in our interview that she wanted Beatrice to be a real person with real-life problems and challenges, not a superhero character.

When Jill's readers asked for the background on Beatrice and her mental illness Jill obliged by writing the free prequel to the series, Black Dogs, Yellow Butterflies, which you can get here.

Jill also mentions that the European locations of the Beatrice Stubbs mysteries provide a special challenge as every country and police force has their own procedures.

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week's mystery author

Jill Marsh grew up in Wales, Africa and the Middle East, where her curiosity for culture took root and triggered an urge to write. After graduating in English Literature and Theatre Studies, she worked as an actor, teacher, writer, director, editor, journalist and cultural trainer all over Europe.

Now in Switzerland, she writes crime and literary fiction to entertain readers with enthralling stories and endearing characters.

Her Beatrice Stubbs crime series topped the Amazon best sellers in “International Mystery & Crime” in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US.

To learn more about JJ Marsh and all her books visit JJMarshauthor.com

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Excerpt from The Woman in the Frame

It was a strange sensation to put on shoes after two days of going barefoot. She decided against applying make-up because it reminded her of the usual dreary routine at home. Instead, she slicked Vaseline over her eyebrows and on her lips. Her husband was a big fan of the natural look. Facing herself in the mirror, she could see why. Her skin glowed, her eyes shone and her hair seemed grateful for a rest from daily blow dries.

Cozy mysteries with a witchy twist.

Melanie Snow is the pen name for established and prolific non-fiction author Wendy van de Poll. In this episode of the podcast, Wendy wears her fiction author hat and reads to us from the first book in the Spellwood Witches series, Witch's Tail.

In the introduction I share that writing the December short story for my patrons has been a bit like driving on square wheels...and that I'm okay with that. Sometimes creativity is smooth and easy, sometimes it takes more effort and a little more coaxing to get a story onto the page.

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week's mystery author

Melanie Snow is the pen name for Wendy Van de Poll, a bestselling author, pet loss grief coach, and animal medium. She is the author of The Spellwood Witches, a paranormal cozy mystery series.

Her books weave together positive magic, snarky forest faeries, and insightful animals with fun and eclectic humor.

She has been followed by wild wolves in minus sixty degrees, hissed at by a mama bobcat, and played ball with a wild owl—among other animal encounters.

To learn more about Melanie and all her books visit WendyvandePoll/melaniesnow

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Excerpt from Witch's Tail

Prologue

Lativia Spellwood sat on her ghostly throne of branches on the summit of Mount Katribus, with many other ghosts swarming around her reminiscing about life and drinking wine. The ghosts of Witchland residents always came to this clearing after they died to stay near Lativia for guidance and to wait until they were ready to pass on to the afterlife. Lativia had been dead for hundreds of years but had still not passed on, for her work overlooking Witchland and its forest was not yet done. One day, it would be, and she was beginning to welcome that time, or she was growing very tired.

I love a good whydunnit!

Greg Hickey's novel, Parabellum, is structured differently from the average mystery novel. This book starts with a horrific, terrifying event and then jumps back in time by a year. It follows four individuals, the ex-athlete, the programmer, the veteran, and the student, and examines their lives and what may have cause any one of them to take their pain out on the group of innocent people from the event at the start of the book.

After Greg reads Chapter 1 of the book to us, I ask him about this structure and what inspired him to write the book this way. We also talk about the themes in the book, including the responsibility of society to take care of its members.

Also in our interview, Greg mentions the free novella available at his website called The Theory of Anything. You can learn more about the book and get your free copy here.

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week's mystery author

Greg Hickey is a former international professional baseball player and current forensic scientist, endurance athlete and author. He is the author of three novels, including the recently published crime novel Parabellum.

His debut novel, Our Dried Voices, was a finalist for Foreword Reviews' INDIES Science Fiction Book of the Year Award. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Lindsay.

Learn more about Greg and all his books at GregHickeyWrites.com

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Excerpt from Parabellum

The ex-college athlete remembered her first concussion the way she remembered her first so-called memory of getting stuck in the unsodded mud patch between her family’s new home and the neighbor’s when she was one and a half. It was not a truly a memory, she knew, so much as an amalgamation of other memory fragments and the accounts of others and conjured imaginings all wrappe...

Matty Dalrymple is my first three-peat guest!

Author Matty Dalrymple and her protagonist, Ann Kinnear, share a love of aviation. Matty herself learned how to fly, though she had to give it up for reasons she explains in the interview portion of the show.

In The Falcon and the Owl, Ann Kinner is taking flying lessons and trying to protect her privacy from the attention of a documentary filmmaker when she gets tangled up in a mystery at her local airstrip.

As Matty and I discuss in the interview, there are three full-length Ann Kinnear novels, and also six short stories. Learn more about all the books and stories in this series here.

If you'd like to hear my interview with Matty about the first Ann Kinnear book, you'll find that here. And for more on Matty's other series featuring Lizzy Ballard you can hear our interview here.

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week's mystery author

Matty Dalrymple is the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers Rock Paper Scissors, Snakes and Ladders, and The Iron Ring; the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels The Sense of Death, The Sense of Reckoning, and The Falcon and the Owl; and the Ann Kinnear Suspense Shorts, including Close These Eyes and Write in Water. 

Matty lives with her husband and three dogs in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and enjoys vacationing on Mount Desert Island, Maine, and Sedona, Arizona, and these locations provide the settings for her work. 

Learn more about Matty and all her books at mattydalrymple.com

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Excerpt from The Falcon and the Owl

Bryan Calvert straightened from his work,

Thrillers in the sky!

I have a friend whose cousin worked as the Canadian version of an air Marshall. I've always wondered what that kind of work would be like. He spends his working hours on flights (or did, before covid). I've never met him but I'd love to ask him what it's like being on high alert much of the time but, hopefully, never having to actually deal with armed terrorists.

Joseph Reid's Seth Walker series comes as close as possible to me being able to ask those questions. The author himself has spent thousands of hours in the air and in airports, which inspired this thriller series. In the interview we touch on the fascinating world of airports, which are like cities unto themselves, and also talk about what inspires Joseph to keep writing.

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week's mystery author

The son of a navy helicopter pilot, Joseph Reid chased great white sharks as a marine biologist before becoming a patent lawyer who litigates multimillion-dollar cases for high-tech companies. He has flown millions of miles on commercial aircraft and has spent countless hours in airports around the world.

Joseph is the author of the Amazon Charts bestselling Seth Walker series, which includes Takeoff, False Horizon, and the upcoming Departure. A graduate of Duke University and the University of Notre Dame, he lives in San Diego with his wife and children.

Learn more about Joseph Reid and all his books at JosephReidBooks.com

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Excerpt from Departure

Thursday, February 23

More often than you’d think, the troublemakers sit in first class.

Not the upgraders. They’re so thankful for a golden ticket to the promised land, they stay on best behavior in hopes of proving they belong in the club full-time. Most of them are business types who simply want to eat their free meal and finish their work.

No, it’s the ones who pay full freight. They think that entitles them to be all kinds of demanding.

I love a mystery set in a land I've long been wanting to visit.

Alexia Gordon's five-book series of mysteries is set in Ireland. Gethsemane Brown is a violinist living far from her Virginia home in a cliffside cottage in Southern Ireland...with a ghost named Eamon.

If you like It's a Mystery podcast, you'll enjoy Alexia's show The Cozy Corner, which broadcasts every other Wednesday. Alexia interviews authors who write along the crime fiction spectrum from traditional to cozy to the edge of cozy. 

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week's mystery author

Alexia Gordon is a physician by day and an award-winning, own voices crime fiction writer by night. She’s the author of five novels in the Gethsemane Brown mystery series. Her latest, Execution in E was published in March 2020. Alexia is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America.

Learn more about Alexia Gordon and all her books at AlexiaGordon.net.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Interview with Alexia Gordon

Transcript coming soon!

Like so many authors, Mark Edward Langley was inspired by many of the great mystery authors of the past.

Mark began writing seriously when he retired and now has many book ideas waiting to be written. He is inspired by the Four Corners area of Arizona, a place familiar to Tony and Anne Hillerman fans. In our interview Mark shares the story of driving through this landscape and recording what he saw into a tape recorder so that he would have that information available to him when he wrote.

We mention an interview with Mark's at the International Thriller Writers site and you can read that here.

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraam

This week's mystery author

Mark Edward Langley was instilled with a love for the American West by his father at a young age. After revisiting it throughout adulthood, his connection to the land and its people became more irrevocable. After spending almost thirty years working in business, he retired at the end of 2016 and began to focus on writing his first Arthur Nakai Novel, Path of the Dead, which was released August of 2018.

Mark's latest novel in the series, Death Waits in the Dark, was released on August 4, 2020. Mark has already written book three of the series, When Silence Screams, and is currently working on book four, Midnight Harvest.

Mark and his wife, Barbara, live in Indiana and spend their time between there and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

To learn more about Mark and all his books visit MarkEdwardLangley.com

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Excerpt from Death Waits in the Dark

The drive to Flat Iron Rock from Farmington took less than twenty minutes; enough time for Arthur to let the desperation he had heard in Margaret Tabaaha’s voice sink in.  The thought that she had just lost both of her sons simultaneously was too much for him to comprehend. And he could hear that fact tearing away at her soul every time he replayed their conversation in his mind. 

Small towns feature their own kind of danger.

Judy Toews and I both live in small towns in British Columbia and she has set her Stella Mosconi books in the town where she lives, Nelson. As she points out in the interview, after she reads from Lucky Jack Road, it's intriguing to set a murder mystery in a small town because most people know one another. And Judy wanted readers to feel like the murders in her books were situations that could actually happen.

In the introduction to the show I mention that if you'd like to know what Nelson looks like you could check out the Steve Martin movie Roxanne. It's a very funny movie, and very sweet as well, and it was filmed entirely in Nelson so you'll get a good understanding of the landscape and architecture in this small Canadian town.

Today's show is supported by my patrons at Patreon. Thank you! When you become a patron for as little as $1 a month you receive a short mystery story each and every month. And the rewards for those who love mystery stories go up from there! Learn more and become a part of my community of readers at www.Patreon.com/alexandraamor

This week's mystery author

JG Toews is a health professional turned crime writer. She lives in Nelson, BC, an artsy mountain town that inspires the setting for her Stella Mosconi mysteries. Give Out Creek (Mosaic Press) was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Unhanged Award and the 2019 Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery Novel.

Book two, Lucky Jack Road, was released in September 2020.

To learn more about Judy and her books visit her website at JGToews.com

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. And listen on Stitcher, Android, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Excerpt from Lucky Jack Road

ONE

He scooped her up in his arms and threatened to toss her in the pond, laughing when she shrieked and clutched at him, turning her head to avoid his big open mouth. She clawed at his face. He dropped her. Touched his cheek and stared dumbly at the trace of blood on his fingers.

Coughing and spluttering, she scrambled up and out of the pond, water streaming from her clothes. “Bad girl,” he said, catching up, slamming her against the big shade tree, his hand on her throat nearly crushing her windpipe. She tried to yell but choked on the words. Kneed him and he howled and let go. 

She ran for her bike. “What the fuck?” he called after her, as if the whole thing had been nothing, a minor misunderstanding. She pushed off,